VoxPhotographs Weblog

Thomas Hager’s cyanotypes and kallitypes/van dykes on exhibit at the University of Maine Museum of Art through September 24 make me swoon.

Sweet Pea, 2009, Kallitype/Van Dyke©Thomas Hager. All Rights Reserved

It’s the only word that truly describes the way I feel when I see them, so I’ve got to use it. I would love to be surrounded by them always. It may have something to do with the wonderful scale of the works (36×27+- and 29×42+-) but his expertise with these processes is really the point. These monochromatic historic processes force the viewer to focus on tones, and Hager’s prints do not disappoint in that department. They are endlessly subtle and truly a visual feast.

Ritual Dance, 2009, Cyanotype©Thomas Hager. All Rights Reserved

Hager’s bio on his website confirms his prowess and we are fortunate to have this exhibit  handy so we, too, can have the honor of enjoying them. He hails from Florida, Museum Director George Kinghorn’s old stomping ground and that brings me to another point. Have you noticed things changing at UMMA recently? George confirms the Museum’s membership demographic is seeing a significant influx of memberships from the 20 – 40 crowd. The Museum has confidently committed itself to featuring exhibits of contemporary art and George Kinghorn is not afraid to take risks, as well as bring in artists from all over the country. I like the mix of Maine artists and others. We urgently need to know what is going on outside and sometimes we are so surrounded by art in Maine we get a bit lazy.

Ginger, 2009, Kallitype©Thomas Hager. All Rights Reserved

Thomas Hager’s work is a perfect example of bringing stellar workmanship and insight to our doorstep.

Hager’s newest work in the exhibit are the two horse portraits. Yep, you read it right: horse portraits. Who would have thought? These two exquisite photographs are confirmation of this artist’s brilliance and original vision. Ride on, Mr. Hager.

Horse Portrait #2, 2011, Kallitype©Thomas Hager. All Rights Reserved

Seagull Skull©Josie Iselin. All Rights Reserved

We stopped by the Island Institute’s Archipelago Fine Arts Gallery last week during Rockland’s First Friday and absolutely loved Josie Iselin’s larger prints in her show “Rock, Paper, Scanner”.

I talked about Iselin’s work not too long ago in this blog – about the cool way her seaweed images are presented in 1″ thick plexiglass at Zero Station in Portland. They are still available for viewing there.

The small jewels of face-mounted seaweed images didn’t prepare me for the impact of Iselin’s larger works. Although the Rockland show includes many small pieces, and very few seaweed, and mostly rocks and found objects from the beach at her summer home on Vinalhaven instead, it’s the large and narrow horizontals that come through on a different level than many of her cute smaller works like heart-shaped rocks and stones arranged like bear tracks.

The “Seagull Skull” which kicks off this posting is a picture I would love to have on my wall – it was terrific. We also liked “Bottle Tops”, below, “Wreck Wrack I”, and “Story Stones” – all panorama-shaped prints selling for $850.

Bottle Tops©Josie Iselin. All Rights Reserved

Very enjoyable to see some work that is simple and clear when so many artists feel the need to create works that are murky in meaning and confusing in intent.

Wreck Wrack I©Josie Iselin. All Rights Reserved

Iselin’s works are straightforward and very well done. She must be the scanner queen of the world! And the print quality is gorgeous…She’s been at this for 15 years and has perfected the process she obviously loves.

Story Stones©Josie Iselin. All Rights Reserved

You can see a ton of images here: www.islandinstitute.org/gallery/Josie-Iselin/165/. The show runs through August 19th.

PS. The second recipient of the Arnold Newman Prize, Jason Larkin, has an exhibit that just opened at the Farnsworth Art Museum. Check it out and beat me to it.

IBeam©Jim Kelly. All Rights Reserved

Addison-Woolley Gallery on Washington St. in Portland has another strong show up this month. Two co-op members - Dave Wade and Jim Kelly – are veteran artists who know their stuff, but aren’t afraid to take risks. I like that.

They’ve put together a show theme flavored with humor – “Digital Detour Ahead”, (through June 25) but the work is deadly serious. Although Jim Kelly is known for his strong abstract leaning, both artists have used the theme of road/street images to push a visual experience over the line of realism.

Jim Kelly loves to start with an inspiring surface – usually a graffitied wall – and go from there, adding his own graffiti layer to it with oil or acrylic paint. He collaborates with an anonymous street artist who appropriated a wall, and in turn he then appropriates that artist’s communication to make his own art. This mixed media approach can anchor the work in realism, beginning with a straight photograph, then Jim brings in the layer that pushes the completed piece into the abstract realm, like the scratched box car surface that Jim photographed and ran with from there.

Wired©Jim Kelly. All Rights Reserved

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Dave Wade has an impressive career as a commercial photographer, but his fine art photography crosses into another realm completely. His sense of humor is evident in so much of his work and that body of work is diverse – from large black and white projects like the important portrayal of the fishermen working from Portland’s Widgery Wharf, to haunting color scenes of Portland’s night life on its cobbled streets, and macro shots of flowers. No ruts here.

Walk Don’t Run©Dave Wade. All Rights Reserved

Much of Dave’s work originates from an eye that makes complete pictures out of fragments of things and this show is all that – wire fences that provide an overlay for the entire picture, the surface of the street sign (above) that all but turns it into an abstract work of art, or an arrangement of objects removed by the lens from its place in a larger scene, that gives the viewer serious pause before the visual puzzle explains itself, like “Filling Station Abstract” below:

Filling Station Abstract©Dave Wade. All Rights reserved.

Several of Dave’s pieces are on dye-infused coated metal – a trend I love, as my own artists know. Of course, having his “Walk Don’t Run” image (16×24), a metal sign itself, remember, ON metal is very cool and fun, and typical of the Wade humorous insight that invades so much of his work.

The Zone©Dave Wade. All Rights Reserved

This show is a chance for all of us to learn from two veteran artists who work hard and find great joy in doing so. I think it’s a successful collaboration – right down to the prints they made together on Jim’s big printer – and the quality of these prints is, thankfully, superb. Most of the prints in the show are 50″x38″, perfect for losing yourself in the artistic intent and technical quality.

Scoreboard, Self-Portrait, 2005, Rockport, Maine©Cig Harvey. All Rights Reserved

When Cig Harvey spoke briefly at her 5/28/11 opening at Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland, she started off by discussing the three phases in her life represented by these thirty works made between 2003 and 2011. Her earliest works on view, as represented by “Scoreboard” above, and “The Channel Marker” below, use herself as subject and speak of a time in her life when she had hit a brick wall and was desperately trying to navigate over it.

The Channel Marker, Self-Portrait, 2004, Shipping Lanes, Bermuda©Cig Harvey. All Rights Reserved

Phase Two is about her new found happiness and the blending of two lives, a fresh start with a beloved partner. She is not included as a subject in every one of these, but they continue to be investigations about her and her place in life, now as a party of two. They are very strong, very complex images, requiring the most attention of any works in the show if you want to find their essence.

The Pale Yellow Cadillac, Sadie©Cig Harvey. All Rights Reserved

The image above, one of the most striking photographs I’ve seen in her oeuvre, represents her current thinking. Cig tells me she is turning around to “see what is behind her” and is delighted with what she is finding. It’s hard to believe “The Pale Yellow Cadillac” is not a tightly controlled shoot, but it was a split-second find over her shoulder at another shoot.  This picture is the apex of Cig’s brilliance, deceptively simple, deeply gripping portraits of the human condition. She is often looking outward now, and many of the current works provide us with mirrors into the essence of being human. They are about all of us.

I think the show has a little unfortunate curatorial schizophrenia in how it represents and/or displays Cig’s work and it gets distracting for me with too much of a mix, but perhaps that is indicative of the artist’s drive to experiment and her curiosity to find out what is beyond her own life experience. I can spot a Cig Harvey a mile away – and often do when in airports passing bookshops where I see her cover images on the re-released Anita Shreve books. But several of her more recent explorations included in the show just confuse and at times I wondered if it wasn’t a two-person show. The images of little girls are my least favorites of any of her work, and I think she needs to build more of a body of work in her newer neutral palette images and then severely edit before including them in a show such as this that should be a tighter overview of nine years of work. Perhaps if they had been installed together – the three little girls as a series, and then the three or so neutral palette works together as an exploration in progress – I could have learned more from them. As it is, they dilute the show’s thrust for me.

Elizabeth, A1 Diner, Gardiner, Maine©Cig Harvey. All Rights Reserved

Often, when an artist is depicting deeply personal experiences, the viewer is left far behind and usually wondering, “who cares?”. But here is Cig’s gift to us, and a precious one it is: Whether you are studying earlier images based on her own life and situations we can never know about, good or bad, or her more current work (like the gorgeous “Elizabeth” above) that includes others, the impact is universal in reach. Very, very much so.

Devin, Fireflies©Cig Harvey. All Rights Reserved

If you can view the 27 works in this exhibit (on view through 6/25) and not be deeply touched, and not discover something about yourself you hadn’t verbalized before, I’d like to hear about it. Men and women alike are blown away by Cig’s images. When an artist connects this successfully with her audience, it represents a deep, genuine focus on creating. With so many artists, it is all about them and frankly, I get increasingly bored and irritated being placed on the outside looking in, usually at some message that is not worthy of our attention. There is not a hint of self-consciousness in Harvey’s works – a bit stunning considering many of the works depict the artist herself in times of introspective soul-searching and some of the newer works are carefully staged.

Cig Harvey does not philosophize to us, does not use her photographs to teach us how to live. Oh no. She warmly welcomes us as full participants, offering profound, visual statements that invite us to bring our entire selves into the works if we will only take the time – a generosity of spirit and intent that is her biggest triumph.

Pearl’s Hand Reaching©Jocelyn Lee. All Rights Reserved

Stacey Cramp tipped me off there is a good three-person photography show at Zero Station on Anderson St. in Portland. (Gallery owner Keith Fitzgerald assures me as of today  that I’ll learn about events at the gallery first-hand from now on. If you, too, would like to be informed, drop him a note at info@zerostation.com and ask to be added to his now-functioning e-mail list.)

The current show at Zero Station -  “In My Mother’s Garden”, which runs through July – kind of morphed from Keith’s connecting with three unrelated photographers over the past year or so who he thought would be a strong trio in an exhibit. The bodies of work aren’t really related at all and the title of the exhibit comes mostly from Jocelyn Lee’s work, I suspect.

Over-ripe tree©Jocelyn Lee. All Rights Reserved

Speaking of which: I just can’t get engaged with Lee’s outdoor images. If they are going to be exhibited on their own, they need to stand on their own and they don’t for me. I feel strongly they need to be included in the larger body of work (“Last Light” – see below) to have value. But at Zero Station there’s a cool bug’s eye view pinhole print of orange flowers in a garden, and the wonderful C-print of the hand that kicks off this posting, both of which held up for me.

But my time was better spent perusing the sample of her beautiful 2010 (Steidl) book  “Nowhere But Here” that includes some dramatic and moving portraits, the artist’s forte. The second section of the book is called “Last Light” and the portraits and landscape photographs (the latter are pinholes, sometimes very long exposures) work together here for the whole narrative of the artist’s mother’s last days. I’ll go back to spend more time with it. Lee is an international star who teaches at Princeton University and is represented by Pace MacGill. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2001.

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Keith Fitzgerald is the only source for face-mounting photographs in Maine and he’s darn good at it. (If you don’t know what “face-mounting” is, go in and find out. You should know if you’re a photographer. You should know about all the different ways photographs can now be presented and test out your images in them.) But he’s outdone himself this time around. For most of Josie Iselin‘s square seaweed images, he’s used an almost 1″ thick plexiglass instead of the usual 1/8″ or 1/4″. It’s incredible and I love it. I’m not sure it would work for anything but objects as subject matter, but for these it works in spades. I’m going to get a couple of them done on spec to have in the gallery  – I think they’ll be a hit.

Seaweed Varieties #300©Josie Iselin. All Rights Reserved

I love Josie’s seaweed series – they are scanned and completed in her digital darkroom and they are very successful. And presented face-mounted in this thick plexi they are like precious objects – winners for sure.

Feather Boa #3©Josie Iselin. All Rights Reserved

Josie Iselin is based in San Francisco and has been using a flatbed scanner and computer to create her images and many books for 15 years. A pioneer of sorts.

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Winky Lewis has on exhibit an image I love:

Harry with a Crab©Winky Lewis. All Rights Reserved

It’s perfection – and even the tiny bit of red bathing suit showing is inspired. I found some of the other images self-conscious in a way, but definitely likeable. She shoots well in color and black and white and this is a strong group of work. Winky lives in Maine.

©Winky Lewis. All Rights Reserved

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And what about Jeanne? Well…you’re in for a surprise. Have Keith show you the incredibly cool display case he’s conjured up to show off Jeanne Paterak’s jewelry (Jeanne is married to Keith). It involves counter weights and a thick gold door and…well you just have to get in there for a demonstration. Jeanne’s jewelry is fantastic and here’s my favorite:

Photo reprinted with permission by j.e. paterak jewelry designs © 2011 jepaterak

Maine’s galleries are full of surprises and I’ve found two in the last week. The unexpected, the serendiptous – it always rounds off a good exhibit experience. Check out Zero Station’s hours, etc. and to be completely safe, call before you visit to make sure the gallery is open. Check out the work, check out the face-mounting and just for good measure, try on a ring. Be surprised.

I honked it up the hill yesterday to Addison-Woolley Gallery on Washington St. in Portland to see the show of Fran Vita-Taylor and Darrell Taylor’s works – on exhibit through May 28. A -W is always full of surprises and this show is no exception.

Because… there really are three Taylors to discover in the exhibit, not two.

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Darrell Taylor’s “Surreallegories” take us back almost 100 years to the birth of the surrealist movement where art was inspired by dreams and the subconscious, resulting in sometimes seemingly unrelated imagery and juxtapositions. Written explanations certainly help clue the viewer in, and in this instance I’m glad Darrell’s artist statement is front and center. Each of the three works in this exhibit are clearly following one concept in the artist’s mind and are very accessible as a result.

The Transfiguration, Assumption, and Apotheosis of High-End Luxury Consumables©Darrell Taylor. All Rights Reserved

The tiny reproduction above is actually 2 feet high and 9 feet wide, so…let’s look at a detail to appreciate the frenzy and humor in these pieces:

The Transfiguration, Assumption, and Apotheosis of High-End Luxury Consumables (detail)©Darrell Taylor. All Rights Reserved

Study these once and then come back to them a second time to go to the next level of observation – there’s no mistaking this artist is having a ball making these “paintings with photographs.”

By far my favorite was Darrell’s “Big Gallery Séance…” – it’s easiest to relate to and being in the art world and a student of photo history, I got a big kick out of it. Plus, I discovered something amazing in it. And we’ll get to that in a moment. Here’s a small detail from “Big Gallery Séance” – it’s full of art world satire and kind of a blast to look at.

Big Gallery Séance: chacun a son gout (detail)©Darrell Taylor. All Rights Reserved

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Fran Vita-Taylor’s work is instantly recognizable and distinctive. They are painstakingly created, no doubt about it – the thought and care behind each image is palpable.

Persona©Fran Vita-Taylor. All Rights Reserved

The  mask is a welcome addition to the flora and natural objects in the gorgeous “Persona”, and this is a picture I could live with for a long time.  I’m not enamored of the photographs in this exhibit with areas that are out of focus  – they distract me from the purpose of the image. Regardless, the exhibited works are more often than not haunting and lovely. I like the artist’s push into using a non-flora object as the picture’s focus – as with “Persona” and the captivating “Split Personality” below.

Spit Perspective©Fran Vita-Taylor. All Rights Reserved

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SURPRISE! Darrell Taylor’s mother, Denzel Taylor, took extraordinary photographs of the men who delivered product to the grocery store where she worked as a grocery clerk! I kid you not. Darrell includes a large number of them in the “Big Gallery Séance” piece:

Big Gallery Séance (detail)©Darrell Taylor. All Rights Reserved

Darrell tells me his mother did not consider herself a photographer at all, but these images remind me very much of the projects of Sander and Disfarmer. She was 38, the year was 1952, and he found all the images stored away in a carefully labelled photo album after her death. Darrell also tells me he has scanned them in at a very hi res and can print them beautifully up to 30″x20″. He thinks his mother took the pictures as a kind of “database” to remember the men’s names, but these terrific portraits go so much farther than that – did she not see how affectionately and beautifully she immortalized these friendly delivery men?

Mr. Stratton – Sunshine Biscuits©Estate of Denzel Taylor. All Rights Reserved

So life is full of surprises – and so is art, thank goodness and here’s a good one.

There’s only a week left to see this exhibit, so stop by and indulge.

In case you’re living in a cave and don’t know about this already, there’s a very extensive retrospective of Paul Caponigro’s photographs on view at the Farnsworth Art Museum through October 9, 2011 – and he is the recipient of the Museum’s “Maine in America Award” for 2011.

Backlit Sunflower, 1965©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

I viewed the exhibit for the second time just as the museum opened on Sunday and that was the right atmosphere – the quiet time of day allowed me to focus completely. Go when you have time and the space to stand there and “read” the photographs thoroughly. You will be rewarded. Before you start, you need to understand how vital the artist’s love of music is to his photographic works – the photographs are visual scores almost each and every time.

Caponigro starting taking photographs in the 50′s, and it’s a lesson in itself to see the early works side by side with recent ones. In the late ’50′s he met and studied with Minor White. Weirdly enough, the morning after the Farnworth’s Members’ Opening on May 6, I reviewed the portfolio of an artist in Boston who had studied with them both in the 60′s, and was getting back into photography in a big way. His work reflected their influence strongly – small, black and white images, often of nature. I encouraged this artist to continue to respect his early influences but move forward with digital exploration, and test some of his work in much larger sizes, and he should have some wonderful work coming down the pike as a result of building on the foundation of Caponigro’s and White’s teachings.

Stone Arch, Reefert Church, Glendalough, Ireland, 1993©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

The Caponigro exhibit at the Farnsworth is divided into locations around the world and then one section for still lifes. His images of stone churches in Ireland are masterful, and for me the perfect-in-every-way “Meadow and Church, Glenadlough, Wicklow, Ireland, 1967″- although less dramatic than the stone entrances, windows and arches – is one of the best images to spend time with. Unfortunately, I can’t find it reproduced online, so you’ll see it fresh when you go!

Inner Trilithon, Sunrise, Stonehenge,  England, 1970©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

In a similar vein, Caponigro’s pictures of Stonehenge are amazing. You must keep in mind these images were taken in the 70′s for the most part – and every Tom, Dick and Harry has taken Stonehenge pictures since. I wonder if anyone has come close to Caponigro’s “Inner Trilithon, Sunrise, Stonehenge, England, 1970″...as far as I’m concerned Caponigro set the bar very, very high. It’s one of the best images in the exhibit.

Tree and Cloud, New Mexico, 1980©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

“Tree and Cloud, New Mexico, 1980″ was a hit for everyone I talked to who has seen the exhibit. It is awkward and magnificent at the same time – that unique visual experience I’m always talking about. The “Monument Valley Storm, 1970″ is another personal favorite I spent a lot of time with.

Reflecting Stream, Redding, CT, 1968©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

Another hit for me was “Reflecting Stream, Redding, CT, 1968″. It includes so much in the way of breathtaking photographic mastery, and this reproduction doesn’t do it justice, trust me.

Shoreline, Montauk Point, 1972©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

There are pictures of France (loved “Tournous Abbey, France, 1987″) and Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. A superb, simple image that oozes mastery is “Shoreline, Montauk Point, 1972″. Take a good, long look at it. I’m still shaking my head in wonder over it.

It’s good to be reminded Caponigro was once a student too – as evidenced by the photographs of peeling paint and a long view of Acadia’s coastline. And the works of Japanese Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples left me totally cold, as they did several others who have seen the exhibit.

Two Pears, Cushing, Maine, 1999©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

Now on to the still lifes. Read the blurb of why the artist starting making these again in the 90′s and enjoy his exquisite “Two Pears, Cushing, Maine, 1999″. But two images from the 60′s take center stage for me: “Galaxy Apple, New York, 1964″ and the simply unforgettable “Backlit Sunflower, 1965″, the latter getting my vote, along with the “Inner Trilithon” image, for the top two photographs in the entire exhibit.

Galaxy Apple, New York, 1964©Paul Caponigro. All Rights Reserved

Several people I talked to about the exhibit were underwhelmed from time to time as they viewed, but, as with many of earlier masters’ works – like Weston’s F64 crew – the viewer needs to remember that being first out of the box means you’ll be inspiration for (and copied by) everyone who follows. The work can seem dated at times – because it is!  It’s 60 years of work! And it’s an opportunity for us all to become very aware of Caponigro’s importance in the history of photography. Eliot Porter and Paul Caponigro’s reverence for their natural world subject matter was a whole new beginning for the decades to follow.

Paul Caponigro has never been appreciated nationally and internationally at the level I believe he should – but he doesn’t even have a website that I could find, so keeps a low profile. The Farnsworth Art Museum exhibition gives us a golden opportunity to bask in the light of this master’s life work – right here in our comfortable backyard.

I  met an artist in the Portland Hannaford last week who told me Susan Maasch Fine Art Gallery was closing its space on Congress St. in Portland. That afternoon this announcement came via e-mail:

While there’s no mention of the gallery closing and moving on the SMFA website, the next day another photographer sent me this link to an article in the Portland Daily Sun about the closing of the space:

http://portlanddailysun.me/news/story/frame-susan-maasch-fine-art

The article emphasizes Maasch’s commitment to photographers who make outsider portraits – Jack Montgomery, Sean Harris, Keliy Anderson-Staley and Jon Edwards. The last show on view is “Don’t Tell Me What To Do“ and it’s up for viewing through the end of May. I haven’t seen it yet and not sure I will.

“We had planned “Don’t Tell Me What To Do” for a long time, but we loved it for a last show. It speaks to that [attitude] of ‘don’t tell me what to do with my gallery or my art or my life,” she said. “It’s irreverent and sassy with a focus on sex workers, the fetish community, people that are into gender fluid issues, drag queens, all kinds of sassy work.”

Maasch is right to wonder why “Maine doesn’t support photography better.”, (although I try never to use the word “support” which makes me think instantly of a charity. I think “invest” instead – that a collector doesn’t buy a photograph out of the goodness of their heart so the artist can keep working, but because it’s a worthy, original work that they want to live with for a long time. Too many artists think their artistic vision should be “supported” and I don’t buy it.) Maine is a brutally tough market when it comes to photography and some of the best and brightest have been picked up by NYC galleries over the years – a situation which allows them to get an international presence and reputation.

How I would love to see Maine become a mecca for photograph collectors – why doesn’t Maine Media Workshops have a larger presence for the rest of us? Many people in Maine have never heard of the it. It draws instructors and students from all over the world, but is tightly self-involved, short on funds and under-staffed and when it comes to moving Maine forward as a photography community, the fallout is pretty close to zilch. This organization, and the always gratifying interest our museum curators show in photography through revolving door exhibits, should have put us on the map years ago. That’s what I don’t get.

As Susan Danly, Curator of Photography at the Portland Museum of Art, recently said – Portland has truly become a bona fide tourist destination and perhaps the time has come when we can capitalize on that with a big photography event that brings international attention to the talent residing in this state.

But losing SMFA will drastically shrink exhibit venues for fine art photographers in Maine in the meantime, in fact by 50% or more, depending on how you define Addison-Woolley Gallery, which shows a mix of photographs, paintings and sculpture. Although Maasch will continue to show portfolios of work in her new office in the State Theatre building on High Street, public access to the work won’t be there any longer.

Well, Susan Maasch always did run her gallery with verve and a deep personal commitment and its closing will be deeply felt by us all.