Still Life

"If you don’t understand the capacity of materials to carry meaning. . . . you’re limited in your range to simple expressions rather than complex ideas." – Kerry James Marshall

I came across Kerry James Marshall’s quote after taking a still life class with photographer Birthe Piontek at Photo Center Northwest. This is what she was telling us; how we use materials and objects in our still life can send powerful messages. Understanding the potential for a material to communicate meaning is a powerful device.

Birthe was incredibly inspirational. Her critiques were informative and helpful. For the second assignment Birthe suggested we think about what was happening with the pandemic. Words that came up for me were distancing, separation, fear, loss, grief, quiet, how our emotions are influenced by our feelings and our history.

Employing four antique bottles, a couple of small white boxes and some translucent plastic I set things up near a window and began.

I enjoyed the work. I kept rearranging objects, kept moving around the setups. Kept going back at different times of the day to see how the light changed the still life. Then I edited my images in Lightroom which has become surprising robust at adding effects.

What meaning can three bottles and a plastic sheet have? What emotions are evoked? Is there a sense of isolation and distancing? Does a still life remind us that looking at art is a very personal experience?

Trees

Making images can be very satisfying and having an image selected for a juried show is gratifying. My image Escalante was selected for PhotoPlace Gallery’s recent Trees exhibition. This Esaclante happens to be in Utah near Bryce Canyon. We stopped to walk down the main street. On a corner stood a home with these trees leaning against a weathered fence. There was so much quiet here, a peacefulness that can stay with you and which I seem to be looking for to experience a moment of restful silence.

Escalante

“In this exhibit we honor trees in all their states: majestic specimens or struggling seedlings, in summer plumage or winter austerity, grown in nature or nurtured by man. Where do you find inspiration in trees? What is it about trees that moves you?  All capture methods and processes are welcome.”

Juror's Statement

“It was an enriching and anguishing adventure to winnow down the inspired photographs for the Trees exhibit. I was transported to alternate worlds as I visited each entry multiple times. Seeking various interpretations of species, seasons, processes, and feelings, I was often faced with tough choices - not only between the artist’s own submissions, but with similar visions of other entrants. I included work from those displaying a strong voice throughout their entries, and also from those with more varied submissions, perhaps offering a path for future exploration. Ultimately, I returned to those that most resonated with a poetic eloquence. Admirable work was omitted with regret, and some chosen images moved back and forth from Gallery to Online to create a diverse and cohesive exhibition.” Wendi Schneider

photoplacegallery.com/online-juried-shows/trees/

Annie Leibovitz At Work

Almost a year between posts is of course an indication of what I think about blog posts which isn’t very positive. Then why post a year and two days after my last post? For myself, a reminder of books read, shows I’ve seen and other things.

So to the book - At Work Phaidon, 2008 a wonderful memoir and a page turner by the amazing and prolific Ms Annie Leibovitz about her relationship with photography and people, leading us through her accounts of famous and not so famous moments of making images.

She starts at her beginning, her first adventure with her camera in Japan hiking up Mt Fuji with her Minolta SR-T 101 and barely enough film. She realized that if she was going to be a photographer then her constant companion would be a camera so she strapped it across her body and set off with her younger brother. She didn’t realize how heavy the camera would become as she climbed or just how much film she should have packed but she made it to see sunrise atop the mountain with a few frames left to record the moment.

Kendrick Lamar, The Bronx NY 2018
by Annie Leibovitz

“ I took this, my first experience with a camera on the road or path, as a lesson in determination and moderation, although it would be fair to ask if I took the moderation part to heart. But it certainly was a lesson in respecting your camera. If I was going to live with this think, I was going to have to think about what that meant. There wasn’t going to be any pictures without it. “

And so it goes from traveling with Hunter S Thompson to photographing Queen Elizabeth. One of our great portrait photographers believes she ‘sort of backed into’ portraiture “but it has turned out to be the mode in which I have expressed myself most fully. It has been a privilege to do this work”. Annie Liebovitz

"Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind."

I'm not Nancy Regan when it comes to astrology but I am a causal reader of my horoscope. I can go weeks and not check it. Then I come across one that strangely connects to what is currently going on in life. 

Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology columns for the Stranger are thoughtful and different. Don't think he as ever reported that an Aquarius will meet their truelove, be a good week for starting a business, none of the usual stuff. Rob's weekly take on an astrological sign can be a helpful reminder that there is usually another way of looking at things or something else is going on that you hadn't considered. When I came across this recent one for Aquarius there was a moment of recognition: 

AQUARIUS (Jan 20–Feb 18): "Be stubborn about your goals but flexible about your methods" was the advice I saw on a woman's T-shirt today. It's the best possible advice for you to hear right now. To further drive home the point, I'll add a quote from productivity consultant David Allen: "Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind." Are you willing to be loyal and true to your high standards, Aquarius, even as you improvise to uphold and fulfill them?

How stubborn and flexible can I be? 

I can be very flexible when it comes to handling life's randomness but many times too flexible. I can subjugate my plans and ideas to make others happy. This has definitely slowed me down when it comes to realizing what I want to do since I can change my mind too easily. Does this mean I don't think what I want to do is important? Probably but I've recently been working on that and it feels good to be stubborn. 

How patient and accepting am I that things can happen but not how I think they will? 

Very! I realize I have always been working towards doing what I want and need to do which is simply to be myself. 

Now this is where it gets a bit interesting...

To being loyal and true to Aquarius high standards. Didn't know we had them.

Remaining flexible and ready to improvise in order to realize those high standards. Sounds like a martial arts move but I'm game. Maybe this is why it took me years to find the right furniture for the living room. There was always something to sit on even it was the floor but it took years to find all the pieces that were right for me and the room. 

““Be stubborn about your goals but flexible about your methods.” ”

— Seen on a T-shirt

Pictorialism

Looking at recent images that I've been creating with my LG G5 — a cell phone camera, and then editing in Snapseed, I realized that I am conjuring a form of Pictorialism that dominated photography from about 1885 to 1915, which advanced the status of photography as a true art form.  

With help from this excellent article about Pictorialism on Wikipedia it became clear these are Pictorial images.  I was not aware of its influence when I was editing the images. I was taken with how Snapseed filters and effects created images that looked more like old photographs or drawings and paintings. I liked the results and wanted to think more about what I was creating and what my influences are for this series. 

Pictorialism refers to a style or approach which is a distinctly personal expression of manipulating a straightforward photograph. This creates a visual beautiful image instead of just recording what was seen. Images lack a sharp focus and can be printed in warm browns or deep blues. The image can show marks and manipulations on its surface. For the pictorialist, "a photograph, like a painting, drawing or engraving, is a way of projecting an emotional intent into the viewer's realm of imagination." Patrick Daum - Impressionist Camera: Pictorial Photography in Europe, 1888-1918

I've started to manipulate photographs because I love to draw and paint. There are some images that clearly show my interest in mark making and charcoal drawing. While others create something new that I might do with paint or pastel. Working digital allows me to maintain an unbroken workflow that is grounded in experimentation and responding to what I see on the screen. This is the same thing that happens when I draw. You find yourself in the flow of creating. Everything else slips away and you are thinking and responding to what is in front of you. 

Finally I am not in a dark room exposed to chemicals. I would rather get my hands covered in charcoal or watercolor paints then developers and caustic solutions. This means my images are not made by hand. The image stands on its own and is not about the the chemical process that went into making the image.

This quote by William Howe Downs who was an art critic of the Boston Evening Transcript in 1900 reminds us that "art is not so much a matter of methods and processes as it is an affair of temperament, of taste and of sentiment... In the hands of the artist, the photograph becomes a work of art... photography is what the photographer makes it - an art or a trade." Naomi Rosenblum - A World History of Photography

PCNW Foto Revu 2018

Almost finished preparing for this weekend's Photo Center Northwest Foto Revu. 

Constance Brinkley and I have been working separately on photographing big cities (Constance) and small towns (Marcia) through window reflections. We realized we might have a gallery show by combining these two different perspectives. That's the feedback we are looking for from this review — do we have a gallery show?

When PCNW announced their upcoming Photo Review we knew we couldn't pass up this opportunity to have our project reviewed by respected professionals in photography. 

Whatever the responses Constance and I are happy and excited that we are showing up with work in hand and questions ready for the reviewers. 

Our combined artist statement is ready and prints have been made. We have sequenced our images and yesterday we received the list of the five reviewers we will meet with over two days. I have more reading to do to acquaint myself with the reviewers background and expertise.

Attending the Foto Revu also motivated me to update my website. Reviewing and editing my new work showed me how my photography has been changing and how I've been changing.

7 Day Challenge

Thanks to Stacy Osterman and Debbie Espinosa for nominating me to do the 7 day challenge / No Explanations. Working on this challenge was a wonderful creative experience. It was the nudge I needed to work on a new series. 

At a recent Fotofemmes meeting Cheryl Hanna-Truscott talked about her prison series project and Kristan Parks said ... maybe you need a new project? 

I thought about this while working on 'No Explanations' and how a new unexpected project or challenge can be what your creative path needs and turns out to be useful. The challenge allowed time to think about my way of seeing, making, editing and processing images. The 7 day challenge was what I needed. 

I went to my image archive and looked through recent images. Then I started working with the images in Snapseed. My awareness grew as to how I look at things, and the post processing path I follow. My selection of filters and presets visually tied the work together. I also realized that I gravitate towards a particular visual appearance in these images, a certain series of filters. Then I posted the images on Instagram. 

I follow Feature Shoot and started tagging my No Explanations images with #printswap. Two images have been selected for the print swap and consideration for a juried show next year. 

Being selected was a very nice outcome but that isn't also going to be part of the outcome of posting your work online. Doing the work and increasing my awareness of how I work was helpful, informative and dare I say fun?  

PCNW Presents

Work from my series 'Small Towns & County Fairs" is showing at Photo Center NW through Dec 17th. Wonderful opportunity and delighted that images from this series were selected for PCNW Presents.

The artist selection was juried by PCNW Director Michelle Dunn Marsh. PCNW Presents was created because:

"Photographers have expressed a need for guidance in the art market; galleries deserve greater support for the on-the-job education they provide artists new to this realm. PCNW has selected ten photographers—emerging, mid-career, and master—who do not have gallery representation in the Northwest to be a part of PCNW PRESENTS for a fixed period of time. A selection of their works will be on view, and for sale, in our alcove exhibition space and online. Private studio visits, as well as conversations, lectures, and panels in our public programs will engage PCNW PRESENTS artists and issues."

Find out more about PCNW Presents here.

Ocean Grove on the Jersey Shore

I knew little of the history of Ocean Grove when I first went there in the 1990's but was immediately taken with the architecture. This image is of the summer tent houses that grew up along three sides of the Great Auditorium built by Methodists in 1894s after they outgrew the first two structures.

It was in 1869 that the Reverend W. B. Osborn, Reverend Stokes, and other Methodist ministers camped at a shaded spot on New Jersey's seashore and created a permanent Christian camp naming it "Ocean Grove."  There were about twenty tents pitched that first summer. 

Ocean Grove in the 1870s.  

The New York Times called Ocean Grove the "Queen of Religious Resorts". A Victorian seaside splendor welcoming tourists and pilgrims. Following World War I interest in camp meeting declined resulting in Ocean Grove becoming a time capsule of late Victorian and early 20th century architecture.

The Big Sleep

Philip Marlowe: What it is you're trying to find out? You know, it's a funny thing. You're trying to find out what your father hired me to find out, and I'm trying to find out why you want to find out.

“He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man… He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.” Raymond Chandler describing the archetypal fictional detective in The Simple Art of Murder (1950) 

The Big Sleep has one of the best film scripts at times very confusing but always entertaining. Watching Bogart do a comedic take on what I think is a book collector is priceless. 

Don't know if anyone was as lovely as Lauren Bacall and that statin charmeuse evening robe that she comes out in towards the middle of film when Bogart brings home her little sister is amazing.

Wish the film had been in color. 

clothseat • style immersed in nature

I have thought way to much about how to introduce clothseat which is a collection of clothing and 'stuff' I have on redbubble, a print on demand marketplace. Clothseat feels very different from my other projects yet it shares an important quality - the fabric designs are my photographs. One image is printed on different items supplied by redbubble. A dye sublimation process is used to print a single image on large areas of either polyester or chiffon fabric. 

I have been taking lots of photographs of landscapes, and closeups of plants. I had so many images that I started to think about what to do with them I finally thought of clothing and remembered redbubble. My friend author Jenn Reese had introduced me to the marketplace where she has her design work. 

I created an account and started uploading images placing them on all sorts of things with surprisingly pleasant results - my images looked good on clothing! So far redbubble was working well as a test site but what was the quality of the clothing?

I'm a member of the fotofemmes collective. An important benefit of being in a collective is having a peer group who can critique your projects. I showed clothseat to fotofemmes member Constance Brinkley. She loved what I had put together and ordered the A-line dress 'Constance' pictured below.  When it arrived we were impressed with how well the dress was finished, how beautifully the polyester draped and how lovely my image turned out. 

Thanks to Jenn, and Constance for their guidance and support and my good friend Julia Hunt for the clothseat tag line, 'style immersed in nature'. 

the 'Constance'

Julia Hunt

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed with the idea of writing and planning for social media and the thought of marketing your work is both terrifying and boring? Call Julia Hunt!

Julia is a writer with lots of experiencing editing, coordinating content-sharing and 'improving processes to respond quickly to customer needs.' In her own words: 'Get the work done, don’t sweat the trifles, and know which minutiae need attention.'

Julia has worked for ExOfficio and the Platform, and understands connecting all those pesky social media sites with content. Did I mention she is witty, intelligent and funny. What a combo! 

I was trying to figure out what I wanted from social media. What I did know is I didn't want to do it. Writing about my work is not easy for me. To get me started with my clothseat store on Redbubble, I asked Julia to rewrite my bio and write a journal entry. Both are much more interesting and they sound like me.  I've learned a bit about how to write an interesting post and talking and brainstorming with Julia has inspired me to write.

For clothseat Julia created a tag line so folks understand what I'm doing with my images: clothseat / Style Immersed in Nature. 

Julia recommended a way to begin to write; open a blank doc and put your thoughts down. Don't edit, just type or write what you know and want to say. Then revisit what you wrote, going back in to refine and reflect. That's how I got this post started. 

If you have an upcoming event you need on social media, and you don't have time, or you don't like to write about what you do, you are overwhelmed with how social media should work for you, and you might not know who your audience is talk to Julia. 

Photo of Julia Hunt by Marcia Glover © 2015

Athena

Main streets are important to a town. They are a constant, rarely demolished. Drive down a main street and it gives you the pulse of the town. It can be a strong pulse with the hustle and bustle of activity, stores busy with shoppers or a slow pulse of quiet streets and vacant storefronts. 

Lisa Ahlberg and I were traveling to small towns in Oregon and Eastern WA and found Athena OR half way between Pendleton OR and Walla Walla WA. 2010 census found about 1200 people living in Athena. 

We were hoping to find a small town like Athena, its past reflected in the buildings along main street. A quiet has overtaken Athena. It was the quiet that made us stop. 

Mighty Little Tieton WA

On the way from Seattle to Walla Walla we stopped in Tieton. A small town, a very small town, nestled in western Washington's big apple growing country. Tieton has had its moments. Right now it is a quiet rural town home to farmers and farmhands but things are happening. Mighty Tieton has turned an old apple warehouse into a gallery space, there is Paper Hammer Press and Tieton Cider Works. I liked the quiet. Not a fussy, pretentious place, not a lot of clutter just a lot of space.

My image 'Tieton' was selected for The Center For Fine Art Photography's juried 2016 show, Simply.