Bill Finger – from his series Ground Control

It is an honor for me to be in the room with so many talented artists, sharing their lives, their work and their commitment to creativity. Each artist has a unique vision, and no matter what the outcome of each meeting, I am always excited about photography and our community.

For those who have not done an event of this magnitude, these reviews aren’t easy. Artists spend time and copious amounts of money weeks prior to the event just getting ready. It’s all a calculated gamble. Sequencing, endless printing, studying reviewers bios and hopefully making the right choices, editing, writing and prepping for every single 20 minute session they can get. They put themselves on the line over and over often in back to back meetings…

I commend you for your courage and your commitment to your craft.

Nancy Baron – I’m so excited to see her.

In the coming weeks we will be talking about and showcasing many of the artists I met with and some that I didn’t have the opportunity to, but highly admire. Can’t wait to show you what talent and creativity there is in this community.

To start I want to thank all of the photographers who took time to meet with me and show me their work. This is the group, all listed in order of my schedule….

• Mary Anne Mitchell
• Caitlin McCaffrey
• Jeffrey Krolick
• Marico Fayre
• Zelda Zinn
• Nicholas Shepard
• Ann Kendellen
• Rebecca Palmer
• Maxine Helfman

Maxine Helfman – Satin Bow

• Brandon Thibodeaux
• Gwen Samuels
• Curtis Wehrfritz
• Victoria Bjorklund
• Hope Kahn
• Patricia Barry Levy
• Linda Adele Goodine
• Rubi Lebovitch
• Timothy Brill
• Wilson Cummer
• Bootsy Holler
• Elenora Ronconi
• Ferit Kuyas
• Deon Reynolds
• Baron Barnett
• Ann Mansolino
• Barbara Noah
• Alli Curtis
• Jon Wyatt
• Bob Cornelis
• Sheri Lynn Behr
• Christa Blackwood

Christa Blackwood – Santa Elena

• Bill Finger
• Andy Mattern
• Peter Croteau
• Alan Ostreicher
• Maro Vandorou
• Bill Vaccaro
• Kurt Simonson
• Jennifer McClure
• Jim Leisy

Jim Leisy – from series Amateur Physics

• Dima Gavrysh
• Michael Butler
• Erin Malone
• Lauren Semivan
• Robert Moran
• Diane Meyer
• Mark Crummett
• Erika Ritzel
• Reathel Geary
• Kerry Mansfield
• Sarah Fuller
• Hillary Atiyeh
• J. Scriba
• Ashley Elizabeth Craig
• Jodi Coleman
• Lewis Francis
• Jennifer Shaw
• Douglas Ethridge

Douglas Ethridge – Carlos

• Cyrus Karimipour
• Carol Isaak
• Marilynne Morshead
• KK Depaul
• Martin Gremm
• Beatrix Reinhardt
• Yelena Zhavoronkova
• Nile Hagen
• Una Hayes Ingram
• David Freese
• Kent Krugh

I look forward to seeing what happens next for many of you. If you see work you like, work you love or admire…contact the artist. Tell them. Support them. Buy a print. Connect.

Architectural Detail No. 103

It is an honor to be part of The Getty Center’s significant exhibition opening this week focused on Southern California architecture. Overdrive, curated by Wim DeWitt and Christopher J. Alexander comprises almost 400 objects, including models, drawings, photographs and ephemera.

My work from the Edgemar development in Santa Monica, designed by Frank Gehry is included in this sprawling review of the influence and creativity of Southern California architecture.

Overdrive refers to the extraordinary pace and worldwide impact of L.A.’s impressive growth. The term also alludes to the fact that an engine churning at incredible speed may overheat. In the face of complicated civic, socioeconomic, and environmental challenges, L.A. has continued to recalibrate and foster bold new cycles of architectural exploration.

This groundbreaking exhibition provides an engaging view of the region’s diverse urban landscape, including its ambitious freeway network, sleek corporate towers, whimsical coffee shops, popular shopping malls, refined steel-and-glass residences, and eclectic cultural institutions. Drawings, photographs, models, films, animations, oral histories, and ephemera illustrate the complex dimensions of L.A.’s rich and often under appreciated built environment, revealing this metropolis’s global impact.

Co-organized by the Getty Research Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 is part of the initiative Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A., which celebrates Southern California’s lasting impact on modern architecture through exhibitions and programs organized by seventeen area cultural institutions from April through July 2013.

A selection of these images is available through my gallery, wall space. Please contact Crista Dix for more information or to see a portfolio of prints.

CIF 52

It is spring in the gallery. Jardin, our current exhibition contrasts the subtle, quiet landscapes of Janelle Lynch, with the vibrant rich color of Ryuijie Douglas’ Color Ice Forms. These bold prints, printed to 30×40 inches become abstract, rich with detail, dense color and organic texture, line and form.

CIF 3

These images make me happy, make me not think about my hay fever and constant sneezes from the blooms, but let me revel in spring and natures beauty in macro detail.

CIF 43

CIF 11

CIF 34

CIF 48

CIF 6

CIF 23

To see more of these stunning images, the gallery has a portfolio on hand, or view this work online. Contact us or stop in.

Tonight at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Museum Store from 5 to 8pm, Janelle will be signing copies of her stunning book of the same name Los Jardines de Mexico. Spending three years in Mexico, Janelle used her 4×5 and 8×10 cameras to capture the essences of the passage of time, of the cyclical nature of life, and celebrating the beauty of Mexico.

It is our honor to showcase these stunning images in the gallery through May 6th.

Events this weekend surrounding Jardin -

SBMA Book signing, tonight at the Museum Store. 5 to 8pm

Artist Reception Friday April 5th at wall space gallery. 6 to 8pm.

Janelle Lynch Artist Talk Saturday April 6th. 2-3.30pm

Susanna

Untitled #3, La Fosa Comun

Arches

Untitled, La Fosa No. 5

For more of Janelle’s work, contact the gallery or log onto her website.

Persephone

Madu Daydreaming

Behind Glass

Behind Glass refers both to the glass or boundaries of an enclosure and to the glass of the camera lens. Often I find myself gazing into the eyes of a monkey, his hand touching the glass wall that separates our worlds. The window works not only as a framing device but also to add atmosphere and narrative, left for the viewer to interpret. My photographs are about the beauty of animals but, more importantly, about their plight. The pictorial quality of these images softens the shock, but the punch is there in the eyes and melancholy expressions of the animals. Primates especially are able to remind people of the undeniable connection between man and animal, and this feeling evokes a memory of a time when man was part of nature. Sometimes I feel like Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, watching a separate world through a glass lens, creating but not participating. I, too, am “half sick of shadows;” I feel a responsibility to take part, to contribute. These photographs should be a voice for the animals. I assist animal non-profits in three ways: by making photo books for them to use as they wish, by licensing images at no cost, and by producing awareness raising gallery exhibits and blog essays.  My goal is to produce a book of this series, proceeds of which will benefit a primate or monkey sanctuary.

Eja’s Twins

Black Macaque

About Anne

Anne Berry’s photographs have been exhibited internationally. She has received numerous awards, including Critical Mass 2012 Top 50, and she is represented by the Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston. Publications featuring Anne’s work include Shots Magazine, Photo District News, Silvershotz, The Portfolio Review, Esquire Russia, Lenscratch, CNN Photos, and Black & White. Anne attended Sweet Briar College (BA) and the University of Georgia (MA). Currently Anne is working on Behind Glass, a collection of images of primates in captivity.

Monkey In Green House

For more of Anne Berry’s work, please log onto her website.

Fred’s Bag

Free at Last

RELICS

RELICS is a series of portraits of common objects that are past their prime. Once relied upon, they have been forgotten or discarded. I photographed each item singly in order to reveal its individual essence. Cracks and scuff of hard use.  Mended hinges. Patches worn smooth by frequent polishing.  Looking at each piece through my camera lens, I am reminded how often function dictates form, and how frequently the form is right. 

The objects in these photographs may have been used for years by one person, while others passed through many hands. They’ve been used in homes, offices, a school gym, and taken on house calls by a country doctor. All of them have stories. Selecting and photographing them, I began to think about the events in my life to which objects have borne witness.  In a sense they are our partners in life.  

Over the years I have taken pictures of neighbors, classic cars, icebergs, and now, … a table fan.  Each time, I strive to capture something of my subject’s essential spirit.  In this project I’ve tried to achieve that by selecting items that display a unique aura – and in many cases, reveal wear and tear obtained from many years of use.

-Robert Moran

“… In his exhibition called Relics, Robert Moran photographs cultural artifacts. The Lava Lamp, the pink Westinghouse radio, the birdcage and a travel-worn valise become works of art that are no longer savored for their function. They have outlived their use but remain behind as evidence of our human trajectory.  Moran, as archeologist, etches these remnants of a bygone day into our social memory so they cannot be forgotten.”

PAULA TOGNARELLI

Executive Director and Curator  Griffin museum of Photography

Pink Radio

About Robert

Robert Moran is a fine art photographer living on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. After studying art at the University of Maine, Robert started and ran several businesses over the course of twenty years.  During that time he found the time to study photography as well as pursue personal work on his trips to Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. Robert’s most recent projects have taken him to Cuba and Antarctica.

Robert’s work has been shown in galleries and museums across the U.S. His photographs are in private collections in the united States as well as Australia and several European countries.  His award winning photographs have been published in The Photo review, Shots Magazine, and several issues of B&W + Color Magazine.

Underwood

You can find more of Robert Moran’s work on his website.

It was while I was in Chicago I was introduced to a body of work that stopped me in my tracks. I am always thrilled when I find an artist who is approaching the medium in a new and unique way. Someone who looks outside the box, or blows the box up. It was that moment when I saw William William Towers work, that I knew he was someone special. His work is unique, thoughtful and I have to say putting myself out there, a one of a kind portfolio.

His narrative touches all of us in some way, we laugh, we cry, we connect. It is these types of images that sets him apart from the crowded works of simple landscapes, rusted metal and figurative work in nature. It is this special connection that Wm Wm Towers has to his subject that lifts him into the esthetic ether and rarefied air of the greats in photography.
It is the creative mind of people like William William Towers that propels our medium forward, that reminds us of how we define art and creativity.

William William Towers Self Portrait

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. – Immanuel Kant

From an early age and since, I William William Towers have experienced visions of alternate realities. What once used to terrify me, I now see as a gift. For it is not everyone that can tap into the realm of the sixth sense. Nor is it for everyone the ability to accept the responsibilities that comes with such visions. As a young lad growing up in Iowa’s Iowa City, Iowa, I was terrified of my visions for I knew not of the derivation from whence they came. It wasn’t until I was nigh 12 of age that my mother took me to the town’s only medium, Ms. Oda Mae Brown, who in all her wisdom was able to mold a sense of awareness and conscientiousness deep within my core.

Hallelujah Cat

While most members of my fellow clairvoyant clan are able to access the spiritual dominions of the human soul, my powers have individualized themselves to gain entry into the other-worldly kingdom of spirits from the feline order. I know not from whence my powers to tap into the divine realm of Felis catus originate. However, history has shown that the Ho-Chunk Native American tribes that inhabited my locales of Iowa were devout worshipers of the domestic feline. And henceforth the ground from which I had sprung from birth, and that compose of my material being, have gifted me these visions.

With the advent of new photographic technologies, I have been able to recreate the visions I see in everyday situations. For I feel that photography, and all of its photographic processes, is the perfect medium to represent my reality. Whilst many people tend to question my extra sensory perceptions, I in turn question the veracity of the photographic document. For most viewers see a photograph as a tool to tell us something very truthful about the world. Yet, the photograph is a manipulation by the creator (i.e. the photographer). For the camera is only a subjective lens to regard the numerous interpretations about the world.

Homeless Cat

So who is the true holder of the truth? Is it you? Is it me? Is it both of us? Or perchance it is neither you nor I. But maybe, perchance, and possibly conceivably, it is only the feline of the species that holds the key to this age-old riddle.

Civil War Cat

Military Funeral Cat, Afghanistan

Twin Tower Cat

About William William Towers -

Iowa born and raised photographer William William Towers is a world-known photographer who was born in Iowa City, IA in 1962 and currently lives and works in Iowa City, IA. He received a BA in photographic studio arts from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA in 1984 and an additional BA in hospitality management from DeVry University in 1998. He has had solo exhibitions at the Doris & Stanley Gardner Gallery at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, IA, and at T Spoons Coffee House in Iowa City, IA. He was a participant in the “Snap Decisions” Fourth Annual Photo Contest, 2009 sponsored by the Iowa Arts Council for Iowan Artists in 2009 and was prominently featured in the “Capture The Heart of America” Photography Competition at Westfield Corral Ridge Mall in 2010. Towers continues to live and work in Iowa City, IA with his wife and two lovely daughters.

Cat on a Wire

Yoga Cat

Shamu Trainer Cat

Disco Cat

Indigo Cat

Ice Cream Cat

Mona Lisa Cat

Space Cat

Dance Cat

Spilt Milk

In the Clouds

City Space

The urban space is striking. Its tall and mysterious buildings, crowds of anonymous people, an endless sea of concrete constantly intrigue me.  City Space is a ongoing photographic exploration of the urban environment and my perception of it.  I am interested in the physical space of the city and its emotional and psychological impact on the body.  These photographs reconstruct mundane events in the city that I have personally experienced or witnessed in public.  Stark light, deep shadow and muted color are visual strategies I explore to describe the city.  I use the city as a stage and transform the physical space into a psychological one.  The images I create do not represent a commonality of experience but instead provide a personal interpretation of the urban landscape.

Taxi

In the Crowd

 About Clarissa

Clarissa Bonet (b. 1986 Tampa Florida) Lives and works in Chicago.  She received her M.F.A. in photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2012 and her B.S. in Photography from the University of Central Florida. Her work has been exhibited national and internationally with print publishing in France and Switzerland.  She was the recipient of the Albert P. Weisman grant for two consecutive years.  Her work is in the collection of the South East Museum of Photography and Calumet Photographic.  In 2012 she was in the top 50 of Critical Mass and has most recently won PDN’s the Curator; search for undiscovered fine art photography.

Street

These classically styled portraits are beautiful character studies, identifying the varied personalities and contemporary culture we live in.

American Girls

American Girls is a series of portraits of girls in United States who own American Girl dolls. When I first came to US the phenomenon of the American Girl doll immediately caught my attention. Photographically it was a beautiful image – girls with their sculptural representations, their twins, their avatars. I realized that their design embodies contemporary cultural values. They were conceived to be anti-Barbie toys modeled after a body of a nine year old.

Each doll can be customized to look exactly like its owner, yet all of them really look the same. American Girl dolls offer an illusion of choice therefore an illusion of individuality. Despite they play a crucial role for girls in a moment when they are forming their identity. With a wide variety of miniature accessories, a doll hospital, a doll hair salon with personal stylists they are perhaps the most luxurious toys ever invented.

American Girl product defines and categorizes American girls – future American women and that fact raises important questions about who gets represented and how. Branding behind the doll perpetuates domesticity and traditional gender roles. I examine how culture and society conditions gender and how it invents childhood. Gender becomes a performance that is again mirrored in the performance of my subjects for the camera.

About IIona

Ilona Szwarc was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland. In 2008, she immigrated to New York City, where she currently lives and works.

Her work examines gender, identity and beauty in the context of American culture.

Szwarc has had a solo exhibition at Claude Samuel gallery in Paris and has been shown in group shows internationally – in London, Bilbao and New York. Her work has been featured in numerous publications worldwide including TIME, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, Surface China, PDN. She has won PDN 2012 Annual in the Personal Category and has been awarded Grand Prize in the Fine Art category of the PDNedu 2013 contest. She been selected for American Photography 28.

Her project “American Girls” has received worldwide recognition, having been highlighted in The New York Times Lens Blog, MSNBC Today.com and The Huffington Post.

Content in the Shallows, Burma 2008

Expedition, Burma 2011

The first time I traveled to Burma, I knew very little about the country and it’s politics. I remember being struck by the meditative beauty of the landscape, the sensory chaos of the cities, and the quiet elegance of the people. As I read and learned more about the history and political situation, it seemed as though the only news and images coming from the country were exceedingly negative and ugly. Most tourists are kept away from this reality, myself included. I wanted to photograph the people I was spending my time with and soon my days were all about making pictures. What I was drawn to were the areas outside the cities, the villages next to the river, where fishermen and their families lived and worked. In that spare and graphic river setting, I made intimate portraits, mostly of the men I encountered, in isolated and stylized poses.  My impression is that much of the country looks like early 20^th century images and I kept my version of that look in mind as I made my photographs.

Pendulum, Burma 2007

Signal, Burma 2009

About Monica

Monica Denevan was born in San Francisco and studied photography at San Francisco State University but it wasn’t until she started traveling extensively that she began to see differently. She has been visiting parts of Burma and China for many years, traveling light, with her Bronica, one lens, and a couple bags of film. Monica’s photographs have been exhibited internationally. Her work had been published in ZYZZYVA, Black+White Photography (UK), F-Stop Magazine, Communication Arts Photo Annual, SHOTS, Black and White Magazine, The Photo Review, The Sun, and Artvas-The Photo (Korea) among others. Online, her work has been featured on LENSCRATCH, F-Stop magazine, and Le Journal de la Photographie. She is represented by Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, Capital Culture Gallery in London, and Tao Evolution Gallery, in Hong Kong, which produced a small catalogue of her work. Monica’s photographs are in the permanent collection of UCSF Medical Center.

Suspended, Burma 2005

To see more of Monica Denevan’s work log onto her website.