OUT THERE – PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT

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David Brooks Stess – what 23 years looks like

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Exhibits/Shows, Maine, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT, REVIEWS on April 13, 2013 by voxphotographs

If you want to know what 23 years looks like, visit the Portland Museum of Art before 5/19/13 to see the exhibit “Blueberry Rakers: Photographs by David Brooks Stess”.

If you want to see and understand what real, worthwhile lyric documentary photography is, see this exhibit. About 60 images are on view, and yes, Stess has taken 1000′s over the decades. But Susan Danly did such an insightful job curating the work, I can assure you it’s all there. The respect, the trust, the knowledge. Not “insight”. Knowledge. That’s what working from the inside out is. Observers observe. Experts have insight. Stess knows.

Ryan©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

In 1989, David Stess was driving around in downeast Maine taking photographs when someone told him he should check out the blueberry rakers, and gave him directions to a local barrens. As he tells it, after what seemed like days on a rocky track, eery figures emerged from the fog.

And in that instant… he knew.

As only Dave Stess can do, he jumped right in – and stayed in – with everything he’s got. Frankly, the project still isn’t quite over, but it’s very close. For the rest of us in the photography community, the portraits he made of the rakers over the last two plus decades say it all: here’s a person who understands what it takes to create something of importance. Ingredients: intimate knowledge, love, respect and trust.

Raking Close Up©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

For Dave learned how to rake blueberries. He raked and raked and raked and photographed. He became known as “Super Dave” for his amazing speed. He not only raked next to them, he went home with the rakers after the long, backbreaking, sweaty days to share their food, their living quarters, their games, their talk.

Think Josef Koudelka (Gypsies) and Danny Lyon (The Bikeriders), both early inspirations for Dave. Think Richard Russo (Mohawk, Nobody’s Fool, Straight Man, Empire Falls and most recently the autobiography Elsewhere) who wrote the catalog essay introducing David’s exhibit to the public. Russo knows firsthand: he kicked off his rise to literary stardom writing about the upstate NY towns and culture he grew up in. Russo gets it right – and the reading public knows it.

Suzette©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

David Stess earned the trust of his subjects by entering their world without reservations. He “got it” – what they do and why they do it. How hardscrabble and uncertain such a life is. Weather, bosses, machines, bad crop – you are a pawn in the very tough and unforgiving world of harvesting.

It’s okay to take photographs of others who live differently, but more often than not, taking photographs as an outsider is closer to invasive voyeurism on the part of the photographer and the viewers. When young writers are told “Write what you know.” this is no rhetoric. Photographers need to make an investment of time and psyche to their subjects to earn their trust, but just as important, so they take photographs from the inside out, from what they know, not just what they see. There’s a difference and it’s a big one.

I honor David Brooks Stess. We are very different people, he and I. But I know the real thing when I see it.

http://www.pressherald.com/life/foodanddining/black-and-white-and-blue_2013-04-03.html?pagenum=full

http://www.pressherald.com/life/go/blue_2013-04-04.html?pagenum=full

http://blogs.yankeemagazine.com/art-reviews/david-brooks-stess-blueberries-for-all/

http://www.wcsh6.com/life/programming/local/207/article/238677/50/Photographer-David-Brooks-Stess

http://www.pressherald.com/life/audience/bowdoin-gives-kirkeby-well-deserved-due_2013-04-14.html?pagenum=2

Quinn©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

(David’s photographs are in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum and many private and corporate collections. He was the first artist I took on to represent work when I started VoxPhotographs in 2007. He is still represented by VoxPhotographs.)

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Fine Art Photography defined…

Posted in OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT, Uncategorized on November 19, 2012 by voxphotographs

This fall I was on a panel with several others hosted by Anne Zill, Director at the University of New England Gallery in Portland. The topic to be discussed was “The State of Photography Today”. The Gallery was packed, almost entirely with photographers. It is a tense time in the fine art photography world, as not since Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession movement has there been such uncertainty and upheaval in this medium.

But photography is no longer “a medium”. I started off the discussion with the comment that there IS no “state” of photography today because photography today is in total flux and undefinable. And to my mind that’s a good thing. For so long, decades and decades, the majority of photographs were made in a chemical darkroom, mostly realized in a silver gelatin paper print. The darkroom has expanded, and there are no horizon lines in sight: digital darkroom capabilities and technology at large have blown any previous definition of photography to bits. Museums who had just a very few years ago finally created Fine Art Photography departments complete with curatorial staff and fanfare, very quickly merged these new departments into Contemporary American Art, etc. departments, now that so much photo-based art employs other media in the creative process. See my previous postings on this subject here: ARTnews continues the discussion, and Where Are We All Going?

For photographs dealers, this is both a great and difficult time to be in the fine art photographs marketplace. Great – because the endless personalities of photographs offer a broader aesthetic appeal and the collector base has responded. Difficult – because today’s technology makes photographers of us all, all day long and everywhere, and as Andy Graham said at a panel discussion at CMCA two years ago: “Making a photograph used to be hard.”

So what defines a “fine art photographer” anymore, when everyone’s making photographs? Photos can be seen on every bus that roars down every street, millions more on facebook, and I myself probably include twenty photos every week in e-mails I send to friends and family. We are all photographers now – so much, much more than ever before because it is so easy and accessible to create cool and really good pictures. Not to mention FUN.

But there is no doubt in my mind what separates a fine art photographer from the rest of us and I offer no apology for my unequivocal stance: a fine art photographer is a person who has a unique vision, and realizes that vision in a mature body of work via the medium of their choice.

There are two main points here: a unique vision. What is that? It means visually unprecedented. Something never before conceived of this way. It can include interpretation, technique, a new point of view or seeing. It is a creative impulse that defines something differently to the artist, new and fresh to the rest of us, a way of seeing something that belongs entirely to that individual. That’s step one.

But here’s the crux of the difference between a fine art photographer and others who photograph well: the fine art photographer is a mature creator who can take that unique vision beyond an idea or inspiration or illumination of the mind. The fine art photographer realizes that vision in a body of work – a full body of work with a beginning, a middle and an end.

I don’t care if the work was taken with a cellphone, mixed with other media, developed in a darkroom, in the sun, or via a digital darkroom. It is all so unimportant now. But what can you show me that I haven’t seen before? And can you prove your creative maturity by realizing that initial vision through the trials, errors and successes of a body of work?

Every artist whose work I represent at VoxPhotographs fits this simple template. They use photography in some way to create a tangible group of works that visually realize their initial unique conceptions and inspirations, abstract thought or flash of a brainwave. Soooo many people have such great ideas. Soooo few people have the skills to realize them, to bring them to fruition, to make it happen, whether in business, art or personal life.

So don’t ask me to blur the lines. A person who enjoys making cool and successful creations out of clay is not a fine art sculptor. Everyone who paints pictures is not defined as a fine art painter who rigorously, day in and day out, creates full and risky and definable bodies of work based on unique visions.

As so it applies to photography. Since 1839 photography processes have morphed and morphed and morphed. But always has the fine art photographer emerged in every era as the one who has a unique vision, and who is not only a good technician. And that vision is then made tangible in a mature body of work, a vessel that holds the vision in place and defines it for all viewers for years to come.

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Forging ahead: Joyce Tenneson at Dowling Walsh…

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Maine, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT on July 9, 2012 by voxphotographs

I’m impressed. 13 books published. Cover photos on half a dozen major publications like Time magazine. International acclaim. Four+ decades of hard work. Joyce Tenneson should be more than ready to put her feet up and rest on her laurels. But, for the second time in ten days I’ve viewed a challenging series of new work by an accomplished Maine-based fine art photographer who could easily coast through the next decade or two on what she’s already achieved: Joyce Tenneson, exhibiting 30 new works at Dowling Walsh in Rockland in “Trees and the Alchemy of Light” through July 29, and Judy Ellis Glickman, who is exhibiting “Upon Reflection” at UNE Gallery of Art through September 30 (read my posting here).

Love ‘em or not, if you miss this Tenneson show, you’ve missed history in the making as far as Maine’s fine art photography community is concerned.

Many contemporary fine art photographers are finding that marrying historic processes with high tech ones results in some highly satisfying photographic experiences. Most of the works in “Trees and the Alchemy of Light” are photographs printed on gold leaf which Tenneson applied herself, and about half a dozen are facemounted on plexiglass (described as “gold mixed media”). Both processes are proprietary to Tenneson, the results of expensive and exhausting experimentation with substrates, and every other part of the process, I imagine – the goal being that of weaving her spiritual journey into her creative vision, and the inspiration to continue the tradition over the ages of using gold to enhance one’s path to the divine.

I went around this exhibit several times and with various colleagues. Sarah Szwajkos said many of the images reminded her of Atget’s graceful and ethereal public park photographs in style and mood. Several people I talked with think the gold leaf process is fascinating and unique in its final presentation, but concurred that some of the images in the show are not as memorable as others – these subjects obviously resonated with the artist, but didn’t translate through to us as viewers. The discussion continued on to whether the process became the focus of a viewer’s attention, overwhelming the images themselves – but none of us came to a hard-and-fast conclusion on that score.

My first sense was that the portraits of a single tree are the most successful images as presented, but the more time I spent with several images that embraced larger content, such as “Lincolnville, 2011″, below, which includes six different depths of field all perfectly presented, that initial reaction unraveled.

I found the variable presentations and variety of sizes (smallest: 8″x10″ and largest: 66″x48″) a little schizophrenic, and kept having to adjust my reading of the works to absorb the ever-changing framing style. My preference would have been installing the works in groups of like presentation. I had long discussions with other viewers about whether the lighting was the major factor in how the works read – sometimes muted, sometimes glaring, from one angle gold, the other copper, others sepia. The gorgeous little “Glowing Tree, 2012″, at the top of this posting and my favorite work in the show, was probably the most overlooked because it rested casually without a spotlight on an antique desk top, well below eye level.

I love the fact that Tenneson is making portraits of trees. She writes in her artist’s statement that she approaches her tree subjects the same way she has approached her portraits of people: “Their life journey is visible as is often true of a human face.” It’s interesting, too, she is re-visiting this subject almost 40 years after her first museum exhibit in 1974 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in which she exhibited “a large series of tree images”.

This show definitely puts Joyce Tenneson in a place of leadership to Maine’s fine art photography community with her willingness to risk all and do what it takes to realize a personal journey and creative vision – a model of boldness and faith for the rest of us.

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Judy Ellis Glickman illumines at UNE Gallery of Art

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Maine, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT on July 5, 2012 by voxphotographs

ALERT! Judy Ellis Glickman is scheduled to speak about her work on Wednesday, July 11 at UNE Gallery of Art, 5-6:30.

One of the more moving images I’ve seen in a while is “Bird Migration, Quebec, 1998″, above, at “Upon Reflection”, through September 30 at the University of New England Gallery of Art. It’s a exhibit of 73 framed black and white works by Judy Ellis Glickman, the earliest image dated 1985, and 7 face-mounted color prints that partner with a slideshow in the downstairs gallery featuring a further 62 color images all from her current and ongoing explorations using color. “Bird Migration” struck me like a thunderbolt - a succinct and deceptively simple 13.5″x19″ visual statement that defines the vastness of the universe at large and the natural world’s complete acceptance of its organized chaos. And then I saw it - the kicker: a tiny, classic homestead at the bottom right on the horizon line. Within the vastness, is that irrepressible, ever present human existence. Me.

“Judy is a photographer and a humanitarian,” writes Howard Greenberg, of the Howard Greenberg Gallery in NYC, in his introductory essay included in the exhibit’s extensive catalog. And that explains a lot about the viewer’s experience at this exhibit. I found a tenderness in many of the works displayed, but I sensed immediately it came from within the photographer herself, rather than a mood she uses technology to create.

Judy Ellis Glickman got her start as a photographer in the 70′s and her early training included a workshop at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine. But the story really starts with her father Dr. Irving Bennett Ellis (1902-1977) – a highly regarded pictorialist photographer in California. As his daughter (and frequent model), she also met some of his colleagues – Ansel Adams and Edward Weston included. An auspicious start and one that would stick with you!

UNE Gallery Director Anne B. Zill writes that “Judy Glickman’s photographs are never predictable…” and the diversity of subjects covered in this exhibit bear that statement out. Glickman uses only natural or available light when she shoots and “sometimes uses film that also records the infrared rays of light existent in our atmosphere.”

There are things for all viewers to learn in this exhibit, photographers and those of us who are only passionate about photographs. Glickman is very strong in the composition department, as evidenced by an early image “Shaker Doors, Sabathday Lake, Maine, 1987″. Her understanding of light, and in particular partnering with the infrared approach (difficult to reproduce effectively here), while from other photographers can seem gimmicky, is frankly exceptionally successful. The Great Diamond Island series, all infrared exposures, is one of the strongest groups of works in the exhibit, although the two dinghy shots seem out of place and distracting to me for several reasons. This series was shot over ten years, from 1985 – 1995 and “Island Glen, Great Diamond Island, Maine, 1986″, above, is simply nothing short of exquisite. The image is so elysian, it makes me hold my breath when studying it, so as not to mar the picture’s effect with my own imperfect humanity.

Another characteristic that makes many of these images unforgettable is expressed by exhibit Curator Stephen Halpert when he writes, “We are no longer outside the image, but move through the glass and into it…”. My heart seemed to stop when I stood in front of several of Glickman’s images of Holocaust concentration camps. These are not of the in-your-face “LOOK AT THIS AND BE SHOCKED” variety: if ever the viewer will enter pictures in this exhibit, it is with these, as the artist has so completely substituted her camera for your own eyes it is uncanny. You are absolutely there, and the ability of the photographer to transport you so completely almost makes it difficult to breathe at times.

Included in the exhibit are 60 color images (seven of them face-mounted, which I love, and then framed, which I don’t), billed as “abstracts”. I’m not sure I agree with the label, but I think they are important for several reasons, not the least of which because here is an example of a veteran artist turning a major corner with her work and exploring it very, very deeply and without timidity or apology. The move to this body of work using color, and very strong color at that, and the hook that the photographer herself is included in every one of the images, is obviously of the deepest importance to Glickman. But whatever her reason for taking this new path, in the end it is unimportant to the viewer, because successful art, regardless of the personal meaning that motivates and inspires it, is, in the end, universal.

While I’ve written mostly about the emotional and aesthetic fall-out of this exhibit, it’s important to note the excellent print quality of the works themselves. Glickman’s longtime assistant Melonie Bennett is responsible for the black and white prints, and the 7 color prints are the work of David Segre of Zero Station.

Photographers will come away from this exhibit greatly inspired. But all of us who seek life’s larger meaning through powerful works of art will come away with fuller hearts for having rested here.

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Lynn Karlin makes it happen – all the way to the New York Times.

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Maine, NYC, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT on June 6, 2012 by voxphotographs

Lynn Karlin, a Belfast, Maine resident, is not afraid to get the word out about her photographs. She recently told me she realizes she now spends 60% of her time marketing her work, and 40% creating it.

Karlin’s work was recently featured in the New York Times. The result was, of course, many sales at her current show at Gallery on the Green in Pawling, NY – just over an hour’s drive from the Big Apple. A little scrolling on the fine art photographs portion of her website quickly proves this is one artist who doesn’t wait for the knock on the door. Karlin has work in venues from Surry, Maine’s Sweet Pea Garden and Gallery – which has been extremely successful sales-wise – to Delaware and many places in between, including a months-long stint of 14 pieces exhibited outdoors at the Stonewall Kitchen center in York – handily located next door to the York Visitors Bureau. 2011 and 2012 were and are chock full of shows. And two are scheduled already for 2013. None of this happened without her making it happen.

Okay, catch your breath.

And now, take another deep one: Karlin’s fine art photographs have been available since…the summer of 2010. That’s less than two years from the date of this posting. True, her commercial career goes back decades, but little of that has come into play to date with the marketing success of these new fine art photographs bodies of work.

Lynn contacted me in the winter/spring of 2010 and scheduled a portfolio review. We talked about how to organize the group of fine art photographs she had spent the past few months creating. Sizes, prices, presentation, editing – all the vital info. a photographer new to the fine art photographs world could use a little input on. I soon sent her a referral to a midcoast Maine gallery I thought would be a good fit for her work. And she was off and running. In January 2011 I started representing her work at VoxPhotographs.

Now I see Lynn Karlin is faintly blurring the lines between her fine art and commercial work as a long time fashion, interiors and gardens photographer – the Garden Writers Association just awarded her a Silver Award of Achievement in the cover/photography category of their annual Media Awards program for her cover photograph on a recent issue of The Hook magazine – yes, it’s a photo from her fine art Pedestal Series. She worked hard to re-activate a very old contact with the NY Times and the result was the feature two weeks ago.

None of this marketing stuff is fun. None of it is easy. Many artists can’t stomach it. But when an artist has work she believes in and works hard to get the word out – well, anything can happen. And it does.

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Commitment…

Posted in OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT, REVIEWS on May 20, 2012 by voxphotographs

I’ve found the fine art photographers I’ve met here in Maine to be a singularly committed group. They have to be. With few outlets for their work in their home state, and even fewer serious collectors of fine art photography here, they have to be fueled by passion. I respect their drive to produce new bodies of work and their willingness to commit dollars to exhibiting it when they know the chance of recouping such an investment is slight.

On May 12, I met three more such passionate artists. For three years now I’ve traveled down to Boston to review portfolios during the two day New England Portfolio Reviews event organized by the Griffin Museum of Photography and PRC (Photographic Resource Center). Last Saturday, I spent 25 minutes each with John Roy, Phillip Jones, and David Torcoletti. I met with John Roy last year and he wanted to update me. I don’t know how I got on the lists of Phillip and David, but I’m glad I did. I was also pleased to see two of the artists whose work is represented by VoxPhotographs invest in this opportunity - Sharon Arnold and Dave Wade.

When I met with John Roy last year, I saw promise, but no focus. Several images were terrific. But a mature artist needs to be able to realize a vision and see the creation of a body of work through – and I told John that. There’s nothing the matter with shooting a variety of subjects and styles, but… a formal portfolio review should include one or more edited bodies of work. John was clearly eager this year to tell me he had taken my advice seriously, but what he showed me this time around told me that loud and clear without words. He created a series that explored abandoned railways. He had a vision and showed me he could communicate that vision clearly to others, with an exciting and often challenging group of about 15 photographs he had edited down from close to 100. It wasn’t a perfect group, but once I weeded out a couple images that didn’t bring much to the table, I can easily state that an exhibit of the dozen remaining images would be of great satisfaction to anyone viewing it. I loved the portrait of the “Railroad Spike” so much, I asked him to send it on to me to include in my revolving desktop images.

These reviews demand I stay focused – completely – as every 30 minutes I enter a totally different world and need to get right inside it. Next up was Phillip Jones. Phillip’s work is realized in large square selenium-toned silver gelatin prints and most of the work he presented to me was from his Shooting in the Dark and Industry series – gutsy and often riveting images. He also brought along a few strays from other series (and one of my favorite photographs viewed in a long time is the one at the end of this posting: “El Toro”. Everyone I’ve shown it to loves it. There is the obvious appeal of the image which doesn’t have to be explained to anyone reading this blog, but in the large print itself, if you spend time with it, you get beyond everything else to the tiny evidence of humanity in the bottom right-hand corner. Ah, these are the images that make it worth getting up in the morning!) But here’s a guy who takes no short cuts and the results are extraordinary works that allow the viewer the best experience – to see something in a new way. One long look through this artist’s website and it’s clear he works hard – very hard – and has honed his craft to a very high level.

I’m constantly amazed at what slices of life artists home in on and bring to light: David Torcoletti brought me an amazing series to review – a former co-worker had been a radio personality in Vietnam and had received thousands of photographs from her American listeners stationed there during the war. She was evacuated (yes, in the helicopters) and settled in the USA, and the only thing she had time to grab was…a small box of some of these photographs the GI’s had sent her. Hundreds were left behind. When she showed them to David 25 years later, many of the photographs had deteriorated, but she thought he might appreciate them, as a photographer. He did and he immortalized them, just as he found them – distressed, peeling and haunting. It’s an incredible group of images and so moving, there is little to verbalize. They are no longer about individuals, but about the loss and destruction of war and “men living in impossible circumstances”. I tend to spend the first 10 minutes of these reviews silently looking at the work – it sometimes throws off the photographer who is hepped up to talk about it all. But I need to spend time with it visually and dislike having images explained to me most of the time. But with this series? It hugely impacted my understanding of the photographs to hear the story behind them and I honor it by repeating it to you.

All three photographers took the time to let me know the short time we spent together had been worth while and nothing makes me happier to learn a photographer moved forward in some way after I talked with them about their work. “…awesome photography review” ” … thanks for your time, insight and sense of humor. You were helpful, and also good company (my grandmother’s highest compliment).” Your analysis of what’s actually going on within a photo is marvelous. Time will tell, but I believe that you demonstrated tools that will help me discern a competent, interesting image from a resonant work of art.”

Remember what I said about what’s worth getting up in the morning for? To have the opportunity to share, if only briefly, in the light that shines from the works of committed, talented photographers…that’s one of the best reasons I know.

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Meggan Gould’s unique vision(s): see one at Space Gallery…

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Maine, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT on April 30, 2012 by voxphotographs

Space Gallery on Congress St. in Portland has created a great new gallery space and the current show is Blind Spots: New work by Meggan Gould and Billie Mandle. (Gould’s work is offered through VoxPhotographs, in the interest of full disclosure.)

The show and the space are a terrific marriage as the lofty ceilings and industrial feel to the gallery bring out the best in the works on view. The big images by Mandle of parking garages hold their own here beautifully, and Gould’s face-mounted viewfinder portraits just glow. (To read a complete review that includes discussion of Mandle’s images, see Dan Kany’s insights in the 4/22 Maine Sunday Telegram.)

If you haven’t heard of Meggan Gould, click here to get educated as she’s building an impressive national reputation for her work. What you’ll see on this VoxPhotographs Artist News page is just what she’s up to in May. I’m not sure she’s appreciated here in Maine the way she should be.

Gould never takes the easy road. She created her GO OGLE series, sample below, by “averaging,” or merging, the first 100 images retrieved from a specific Google image search. A code was written that did it mathematically, averaging the size and then the pixel values. She didn’t just “try” twenty or so of these – she made 1000′s, eventually editing this mass of work down to several hundred she considers successful.

In her PINHOLE series, Gould made digital pinhole photographs while driving or riding on a train mostly in New England – quite the multi-tasking challenge. She wanted to record what she had zipped by regularly without taking it in – and it’s a terrific, challenging and complete series. She says: “I was interested in looking at the aesthetics of transition – of being in motion, and observing the classic points of landscape streaming by me. In this case I was driving through familiar (daily commute) territory, looking at the highway spaces but aware I could not always be actively engaged with them. The pinhole aspect allowed me to further abstract this peripheral vision, by necessitating longer shutter speeds.”

Back to the Viewfinder series on view at Space Gallery – who would have thought these little manufactured camera parts would have such unique personalities? Yes, each manufacturer has its own specific design with unique (and often enigmatic, Gould says) marks, but what happens to it over the life of the camera in the hands of possibly several owners is what dictates the unique personality of scratches, dust, hair and other detritus. With Single Lens Reflex cameras, this is how we saw the world for soooo long, but what happens when our vision stops with the viewfinder instead of traveling through and beyond? Gould asked herself. So, as per her habit, she set out to find the answer with her camera.

The Viewfinder series was selected as second place Curator’s Choice winner in the Santa Fe CENTER competition, and included in the May 26 opening of Second Nature: Abstract Photography Then and Now at the De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA. Viewfinder is another very challenging project and Gould says “I shoot these with crazy macro extensions, and usually have to digitally composite them together, as more often than not I have to take multiple photographs to capture one, because of the tiny focusing area.” Isn’t being a fine art photographer about stretching your vision, your ability and the technology available? Gould does it in spades with each new body of work.

The presentation of her work at Space Gallery is second only to the images themselves, and her choice to have Keith Fitzgerald at Zero Station face-mount all of these behind plexi is inspired and completes the vision, as more photographers need to understand. Not only does Meggan Gould serve as an inspiring role model to the young photographers she teaches at Bowdoin, but to photographers at all levels she provides an example of how important quality and thoughtful presentation is to any exhibition of her unique visions.

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Ben DeHaan at Base Camp Gallery – something new, something old

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Maine, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT on June 15, 2011 by voxphotographs

The first I heard about Base Camp Gallery’s inaugural art opening on March 31 was when I was working my way through MAINE mag’s June issue and saw the pics of the event. It was held in an old beer distribution warehouse on Presumpscot Street in Portland. Their logo for that event says “New Works from Maine’s Underground”.

Will Sears, who partnered with Tessa O’Brien to launch this venture, tells me “the show was a real success” and they are planning their next gig (“an epic party”) maybe early September and maybe in another location. They emphatically distance themselves from what they seem to think the rest of the galleries in Maine are showing for the most part: tourist stuff.

Base Camp Gallery is an interesting and welcome concept – and totally ties in with my own experiences with the 20′s and 30′s generation: no long-term commitments, no roots and a “we’ll get to it when and where we get to it, people!” attitude. (My friends who are parents of this generation are practically comatose with worrying where the heck they went wrong.) Will says no date for another show has been set because he and Tessa are “pretty busy.” As most 50-somethings since time began, I feel like I’m living on another planet than this generation, but that’s another posting on another blog because it has nothing to do with art! (But I can’t help demonstrating my point: A 64 year old friend has a 26 year old intern (no typo there) working for him this summer who has no romantic relationship, shares housing with two others, one of each sex, and has no clue what he wants from life or where he’s going. My friend, on the other hand, had a job traveling all over the world purchasing goods for a huge retail company. Married, home/mortgage and two children. All by the age of 26. Like I said: two different planets and each saying “Who ARE these people??!!”)

Okay – back to the photography blog: Two photographers were included in the mix at that March 31 opening: Ben DeHaan and Colin Mathews. If you access Ben’s blog, you feel a little schizoid: there’s a ton of lovely, scenic pictures (of Acadia!!) that tourists just might like! But here’s the picture that was at the last show (“Don’t Tell Me What To Do”) at Susan Maasch Fine Art in May – it’s one image in an incredibly creative series of 14 works called “Like Animals”:

I love much of the work on Ben’s website – he fleshes out totally diverse themes and builds them over time, and that is one of the signs of a serious, mature artist to me.

His different portfolios look like they are carefully edited into very strong groups of work – it’s an impressive visual trip.

On his blog, Ben posts a note about the March 31 opening of Base Camp Gallery and says “It was great to be a part of the space that is dedicated to sustaining the creative talent in Portland”. Um. Well…okay.

Truth be told – there are many galleries in Maine dedicated to exhibiting and selling art that has nothing to do with lobster boats – or Acadia, for that matter. I just got a notice about Aucocisco’s provocative show “Shift” opening on tonight, June 15. The Photo National 2011, together with Thomas Hager’s cyanotypes and other historic processes works, opening June 24 at UMMA, promises to be cutting edge, and I’m counting the seconds until I get to lose myslf there. Space Gallery, and Two Point Gallery (which I think is closed) are/were always stepping out into thin air with their courageous and cutting edge events. Will Sears is right – there is more room for “edgy and experimental” here in Maine. But it’s far from a wasteland in that department.

And I think the Base Camp Gallery concept is very cool. I was just talking with Keith Fitzgerald/Zero Station the other day about how artists and groups of artists should stop waiting around for a gallery to take them on and do it themselves: grab some of the empty storefronts for First Friday Art Walks in Portland and elsewhere, and install their work and have some fun. Will Sears talks about how much they like the “pop-up gallery idea” and I do too. I hope he and Tessa O’Brien set up an notifications e-mail list SOON about any future big one night shows – I missed discovering Ben DeHaan’s work the last time around at their March 31 event, and that’s counter-productive to their mission. This 57 year old art dealer who hates Facebook and doesn’t hang out on Monument Square in Portland, would like to be in the loop.

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Paul Caponigro – Farnsworth Art Museum

Posted in EXHIBITS/SHOWS, Maine, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT on May 17, 2011 by voxphotographs

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.

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.

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!

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″ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Kamil Vojnar – AIPAD highlight

Posted in ONLINE AWESOME, OUT THERE - PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT, REVIEWS on April 7, 2011 by voxphotographs

Verve Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, NM has some very strong, exciting artists on view. One who really caught my eye and my soul, actually, at AIPAD recently is Kamil Vojnar. He’s been with Verve for several years. I would have to say Vojnar was the find of the show for me. (I must be living in a cave not to be familiar with his work, but Maine can be a cave sometimes.)

This artist has a mind that doesn’t quit. I know that for a fact because I just received an “artist statement” he wrote, so to speak, for Eyemazing Magazine last fall and it is the only artist statement I have ever read that has moved me. And he doesn’t use the word “fascinated” once. I’ve reproduced it in its entirety below.

Vojnar is based in France and has several galleries in the USA representing his work as well. My favorite at the show was “Free Fall” at the top of this posting. The “Angel” series (Sleeps, Sleeping, Dreams, Dreaming, etc.) are dynamite. All the images I saw at AIPAD prominently featured figures, but here are two new deeply haunting images I found on his website and requested from Verve so I could reproduce them here for you. If you google the artist, tons of images are available for viewing on the internet:

On the Lenscratch blog I found a May, 2010 posting about Vojnar – that he was born in Czechoslovakia and studied in Prague and Philadelphia. He’s obviously hot – he sells like crazy and obviously works like crazy too – there is a wealth of work out there. What amazes me is how reasonably priced it is. He’s a big talent, but his prices are for all of us. If I could, I’d fill a room with them. Layered, with a brilliant understanding of color, not to mention the human psyche, these photographic constructions are images you can live with for a long, long time.

Like Mr. Vojnar says in his statement below: “Every time you turn the corner, there are pictures, every time you turn to the next page… more pictures”. But he is why we keep looking and turning those corners - the quest for the unique vision coupled with dramatic artistic talent is what we seek and oh, how sweet it is when we find it.

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My apologies to Mr. Vojnar – WordPress does not embrace copy and paste well – hence the spacing is not all as originally composed.

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Here I am.
Writing about myself.
But believe me, that was not the plan!
I hoped someone else would do it… write …whatever.
The real writer!
You know, the proper article. Review, little essay, an interview.
That would make me look good! My work profound! Far reaching!
Like everybody else’s!
Yet the writers! They bailed out.
The time was tight.
And there was no money in it.
And you know, you get what you pay for.
Because, if you ask me, I prefer pencil, brush, camera… or knife, if it comes to that.
Anything you can leave your mark on with.
But words, they float around, weightless and slippery.
They comfort, they hurt. Then they run away, transparent like water.
Because, if you ask me, I prefer music.
I should stand here, pressing a violin to my chin … carve out a beautiful melody with my bow.
Out of the thinnest air, the deepest sound would come!
But I don’t have a violin! And don’t know how to play!
So I am standing here, stark naked, searching for cover.
My white skin glows in unexpected light.
I am searching for the words to explain. To explain the crime.
Was it ignorance? The outsized ego?
That lifted me out of my fragile shell, from my safe “Nowhere”?
And propelled me, right … here?
Sorry, I didn’t knock. There was no door, no bell to ring and say… Hello, it’s me.
There was no gate, there was no time!
From darkest corners, brightest clouds, I fell…like a cherry.
Clutching black folder and my hat.
Because… I make pictures, if you must know.
Because my soul is dripping. It’s soaking wet.
Okay, listen, I will tell you all about it.
Tell you, because I don’t know how to play.
Listen. I go out and find the highest mountain.
I stand up on the highest hill and wave my hands in the wind.
Like leaves in autumn, ideas blow around, appear, grow enormous, deflate and disappear.
Ideas slap my chin, bury me under, then lift themselves and “poof,” they’re gone again.
I open my jacket and let as many I can in.
They push me down, to the ground …roll around.
In the deepest black and lightest white, and anywhere in between, … I roll.
Then I stand up, I clean stardust from my clothes, holding my pockets closed tight.
Only later, later at night, when all is safely a sleep, I open them and let the little sparks out.
Sparks of light, like fireflies.
They dance, reflected in the fountains of my eyes.
Which one, which one will help me go, guide me through?
Like fireflies they are!
I cling to them and feel being lifted.
I am holding my breath, not feeling the floor.
Not feeling attached anymore … where do I go?
Where do I go, when there is no road, no map to guide me through, no border to stop me.
No ceiling, no floor!
Where do I go, if all around is just a milky, hazy mist.
And from the cloud above, thin strings are suspended, attached to my arms.
And I just hope, I hope, that up there, somewhere, at the other end of those strings,
there is a balloon filled with golden air,
a balloon that will carry me on, even if I have no more energy, no more strength to keep pushing forward.
It’s a sentence, making pictures. No hope for early release for good behavior.
It’s like a crawling through the fog, each and every one of them.
Inching forward, with hands outstretched far ahead so as to prevent bumping my head.
Inching forward slowly, at times overwhelmed by the sense of enormity of what is possible,
at times flipped out by fear … I will never make it.
I am crawling through that white darkness, crying … crying loud, out of happiness and dread.
The bottom is no longer visible.
I can only fly or be no more.
But someone may ask, Why? Why not just stay still?
Enjoy a drink at the end of day, warm dinner, fleeting love?
Because… what if there is no light at the end of tunnel?
Because, what if there is no tunnel?
If it is all just this collection of passing moments, meant to be lived.
And I say, what about the Bosnian boys and men taken to the forest and machine gunned down into the ditch.
What about those who jumped down from the burning Twins?
They were going down with no shoes on. Why??? I want to know, why?
What about Neda, dying in a pool of her own blood on Teheran’s sidewalk?
Her large brown eyes wide open in utter incomprehension.
What about the wars we fight, the hunger, sicknesses, depravity, the inequality?
What about the cigarette burning at your lips?
Have we learned nothing?
We keep marching to the same drum, licking ice cream in the sun!
OK I get it!
I make only small pictures, no big deal.
Small, honest statements about the state of my soul.
Why should you care anyway?
There are plenty of pictures, anywhere you go.
Every time you turn the corner, there are pictures, every time you turn to the next page…more pictures.
New pictures, old pictures, new pictures just like old pictures.
Fresh, cool, hot, dated, contemporary, antiquated.
Seas of colors and shapes.
Feels like pissing into the ocean!
Feels like drowning!
Please, have mercy!
Okay, okay, there must be a reason!
Some reason to it all!
I photograph your face.
I move your arm. And I don’t know why.
I print my pictures, I cut them, glue, paint, scratch, glue again, paint again.
I don’t know why. Something is pressing me on. It must be done! I don’t know why!
Dreams have landed. My son was born. I move your body sideways, put a flower in your hair.
Night changes into a day. I take my daughter’s hand, hold her tight, show her the sky.
I don’t know why.
Dreams have landed, I keep my head high, I don’t know where I am going, I am flying blind
and I don’t know why.
I know, there must be a reason. I soak up your stare, children’s cry, I don’t know what’s tomorrow,
and I don’t know why!
Only small pictures I make. Nurse them to life … no midwife skills. Like my soul, they are soaking wet.
My blood and sweat.
And my blood is warm … and red.
Then release them, let them live their life. I don’t know where they are going. And I don’t know why.
Look, trust me, I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to write.
I wanted to read something nice about me.
But, they bailed out!
Look, I don’t know what I am doing, and I don’t know what to say.
I am flying blind!
But now … I am standing here, stark naked.
And suddenly … I know it now! I know it all.
I see my shadow on the opposite wall.
I carry your weight, so you can be light.
Because I see the shadow, and there are wings on my back, and the wings are white.
I etch your sorrows and my demons into a piece of paper.
I carry the paper to the highest point, there kneel down and beg for forgiveness.
I am kneeling down there, stark naked in unexpected light.
I have just feathers to cover myself. Their color is white.
Please, don’t ask me why!

Kamil Vojnar
June 2010, Paris

Text written originally for my profile in the Eyemazing Magazine,
Fall 2010 Issue. (www.eyemazing.com)

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VoxPhotographs Weblog

Archive for the OUT THERE – PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT Category

David Brooks Stess – what 23 years looks like

Fine Art Photography defined…

Forging ahead: Joyce Tenneson at Dowling Walsh…

Judy Ellis Glickman illumines at UNE Gallery of Art

Lynn Karlin makes it happen – all the way to the New York Times.

Commitment…

Meggan Gould’s unique vision(s): see one at Space Gallery…

Ben DeHaan at Base Camp Gallery – something new, something old

Paul Caponigro – Farnsworth Art Museum

Kamil Vojnar – AIPAD highlight

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