Costa Rica Art- Modern Developments Photographs Made With Coffee!!!
"Fading Away" CAFEGRAFIA® on Wood
" Working In The Coffee Fields "
CAFEGRAFIA® on Ceramic Plate
Coffee Artwork above Title:
"Midnight Silence"
is a Limited Edition
Cafegrafia® Print directly created on the glazed surface of ceramic tile.
Specifications:
First Cafegrafia ® prints ever. Produced not upon paper but on glazed Brazilian, Spanish and Costa Rican Ceramic Tiles.
Tile size: 8x10 inches.
Weight: 28 Ounces
no printing screen marks, continuous tones.
Tones: Warm to cold coffee tones.
20 different
subjects.
Edition Limited to 5 copies per subject.
Edition opened in September of the year 1990,
closed and exhausted in January of 1991.
Estimated Permanency: More than 500 years !
CAFEGRAFIA ® RESEARCH LAB PERMANENCY TEST
The coffee images on tiles were left on a roof top to receive the full blast of
tropical sunlight during the summer. Measured in degrees LUX, the quantity of light falling from a cloudless sky at 12:00 am is 1 MILLION LUX.
the equivalent in light fading action upon an image in one full 12 hour day under summer conditions above, is equivalent to the light action that an image
receives inside a house during one whole year . (typical indoor illumination in homes: 250 - 450 LUX) after an exposure to light of 24 months in the
roof top our image showed no fading
interpolating results with typical indoor illumination of 450 LUX, it means our image would show no fading in 600 years !
Coffee Art Cafegrafia® print on paper
Title: Tall Grass
"Thinking of You"
Cafegrafia® on Paper
" Paper Wings
"
Cafegrafia® on Paper
All the Cafegrafia® Works above are now out of print
For current available works see below
Above, Cafe Ole Magazine March1993 page 25 featuring the
Cafegrafia®invention.
The Above Document text reads:
" Photos by Saul Bolaños.
Based on a novel chemical process,
this photography was created by
Saúl Bolaños a Costa Rican artist.
Bolaños discovered that coffee
reacts with certain insoluble
metallic oxides, allowing photographic
images to be developed on paper,
glass, wood, ceramic and stone.
This examples of his work
are reprinted here with permission.
His works are represented in the U.S.,
Canada and Japan by
Cafegrafia™ International,
which promotes the image of
coffee through art and education."
SEE ALSO COFFEE ART HISTORY
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" Photographs Created With Coffee "
Cafegrafia® is a unique Photographic
process using coffee to create warm-toned prints.
By Dolores M. Rossman
and Kristian Nielsen
Northwest Photonetwork
Seattle, WA , USA - page 39 April 1993
" Born in a coffee-growing
country, Saul Bolaños wanted to
utilize coffee in a form other
than consumed as a beverage.
Secondly, he wanted to create
photographic images of his
native land and people.
Cafegrafia® does not exist
either in diccionaries nor
photo chemistry books. It is
the proprietary process, product
and name created by Saul Bolaños.
The details of the process,
is a secret known only to Bolaños.
Cafegrafia®, the name, literally
means " coffee graphics, "
and
in Costa Rica Saul Bolaños is
renowned for both his artistry
and inventiveness.
In November of 1990,
Saul Bolaños launched upon
Cafegrafia® . Almost his entire
efforts were directed to producing
a new technology in photography.
His laboratory is a Mecca of science;
his library, the envy of any research
facility in photo chemistry. Because
he has built or modified all his
equipment, Bolaños simply states,
" if everything were lost that I own,
I would simply start over again.
Because this is my life. "
His candor regarding his profession,
his philosophy, and his life is very
disarming.
The staining properties of
coffee have been well known
for a long time; the reaction of
coffee with certain metallic
oxides
has not.
To quote Saul in his hypothesis:
" if I were able to make a
photographic image composed of
an insoluble oxide of certain metals,
I would be able to coat this with coffee
so a reaction would take place. The
amount of coffee that would be fixed
would be
in proportion to the residual
of oxide in the image, thus
would remain a gradation of
opacities composed of coffee united
with the metal. "
Cafegrafia® uses coffee in a
" dry process " as pigment
finely ground like talcum
powder; and as " wet process "
reagent. What concentrations
you ask ? Oh, out of your cup
will do. No sugar or cream,
please!
The images are individually
produced without a darkroom !
Having previously treated the
surface
for imaging, Saul simply
strokes the surface with coffee,
and the subject appears. He leaves
us in a quandary, and we may
conclude this is " magic " because
of what little he reveals.
The beautiful golden tone
images are produced on other
mediums such as paper, wood,
glass and ceramic.
Cafegrafia® is permanent.
After two years of direct exposure
to sunlight, the images
show no evidence of fading.
Try getting those results with
conventional photo chemicals !
Thirty-two limited edition
Cafegrafia® prints are currently
being offered to collectors. The
photographs will be on display
by exclusive representatives for
North America and Japan at the
Photo & Imaging Expo '93.
For information contact
Cafegrafia® International....."
" Product Profiles "
Picture This Coffee
Cafe Ole Magazine
Seattle, WA , USA - page 52 nov 1992
" A recent leap in coffee technology has
nothing to do with it being a beverage.
Picture this...photographs made of
coffee!
This revolution is the brainchild of
Costa Rican Artist Saul Bolaños.
This artist chemist has taken a natural
product of his native country and turned
it into a form of visual imagery, called
Cafegrafia ® ---" coffee graphics. "
Bolaños discovered that coffee reacts
with certain insoluble metal oxides,
allowing photographic images to be
developed on paper, glass, wood,
ceramic and stone.
The resulting images posess a warm,
personal appeal that harks back to the
sepia-toned photos of years ago.
The details of this novel process
remain closely guarded secrets. But Café
Olé Magazine was able to pry a few
tidbits from U.S. distributors.
His advancements for CAFEGRAFIA
include a special camera and enlarger,
and new lab techniques. Unlike other
photo processes No darkroom is
required.
Developing an image can be
accomplished in full sunlight.
Bolaños has even been called a witch
by some who have observed the magic
process. "
Modern Day Alchemist
Costa Rican Artist Saul Bolaños Finds
his Medium is Hot
BY JOHN M. EDWARDS
Coffee Journal USA - spring 1996, page 18
Costa Rica, a coffee democracy in a sea of banana republics, is known more for its number one export than its art . So perhaps it is only natural that Costa Rican photo-artist Saul Bolaños decided to fuse the two and extract art from the ubiquitous bean.
His CAFEGRAFIA® sepia- color photo images made real by coffee, explore the offbeat flight paths of Central American visual art.
In front of the country's best outdoor cafe, in San Jose's
PLAZA DE LA CULTURA - a bustling market place.
Cafegrafia is sold to passing tourist.
" To be an artist in Costa Rica is not easy." says Bolaños, a cup of java steaming in one hand.
"There are many art lovers, but very few art buyers. "
He displays what looks like an old photograph of a
Marquezian nude.
( a photograph made with ground coffee ! ) Then rubs it,
( taking the coffee off the photo image) holding up a finger with
lightly dusted coffee grinds. " My favorite is Costa Rican
espresso. Dark roast. "
He says by way of explanation to an Amazed onlooker.
" I drink five cups a day. I stop for a few weeks each year when it affects my nerves."
To Bolaños the photo chemist, Costa Rica is coffee, and he has discovered many things to do with it other than drink it.
The staining properties of coffee are well known. The reaction of the psychic sludge with certain metallic oxides is not. Using both powdered and liquid coffee as a pigment to capture the many moods of his native land and people, he has developed secret formulas to make images absolutely permanent.
No darkroom is needed: after treating the surface of a medium for imaging. Bolaños simply brushes on coffee.
and presto ! The subject magically appears.
We might conclude Bolaños is some kind of alchemist since he reveals little of how he achieves his golden effect: " the coffee tones are warmer and richer than any process I know of, and I know many. "
In fact, Bolaños magical mistery tour into caffeine art is the result of a lifetime of research. But he never lost sight of the natural world just outside his laboratory door, a paradise of protected rainforests, virgin beaches and smoking volcanoes. His photography, he says, tries to uncover the magic hidden by the visible world. " for an artist, leaving behind a lasting impression is important "
In 1988 he began his research into coffee photography.
Since then Bolaños has developed five different photographic imaging techniques using coffee, as well as others utilizing gold bronze and quartz.
His faustian laboratory in Escazu is a Mecca of Technology as well as a cafe of aesthetics.
" In chemistry, the occult wonders of matter are revealed; in alchemy chemistry is extended to reveal the nature of the spirit and the self. Your average chemist is a technocrat used by the science which he serves, whereas, historically, the alchemist was adept in many crafts. "
Bolaños' newest art, VITROGRAFIA, is related to high temperature chemistry and the properties of quartz.
" In this process , photo subjects on treated ceramic pieces are brought to life by fire "
According to the artist, vitrografia subjects are not affected by the elements and will last for centuries in the open air. " This is only a small part of my research, what I have in my lab I can not publish at this time "
He says with a smile " It is all just a curiosity "
Luis Ferrero Acosta. Costa Rica's best-known art historian, has called Bolaños " a master "
others say he is a witch.
Since 1990 his work has received much attention in Latin America, but in the U.S. and abroad his work is still relatively unknown. Two techniques were featured at the 1993 photo & image expo in Seattle and the 1993 coffee show in Boston.
And now the International art community is beginning to wake up and smell the coffee. At the 1993 International Exhibition of Photography in Washington, Bolaños won medals for two works,
" The New Man " and " The Dreamer. " The anonymous entries were judged on artistic merit, not process; judges were unaware that Bolaños had maybe slipped them a little caffeine.
Refusing countless lucrative offers to mass-produce other artist's work using his coffee art techniques, Bolaños instead stays focused on his own vision, be it a rural scene of children coffee beans or a still life of traditional coffee-making apparatus.
Other coffee artworks range from tranquil beach and rural scenes to espresso rich portraits of magical realistic clowns and dreamlike nudes. Their sepia coffee tones and textures drive home the fact that Costa Rican life, outside the tourist districts, has not changed much in the last century. Nor has Bolaños' simple advice to skeptics: " Take art not with a grain of salt but with a little cream and sugar. "
Current Cafegrafia® Available Now
100% Coffee Images on Paper
see Coffee Cards
100% Coffee Images on Filter Paper
see Coffee Filters
100% Coffee Images on Filter Paper
see Zodiac Art
on Ceramic Plates
see Coffee Art Plates
Coffee Jewelry - Coffee on Wood
see Coffee Art Medallions