The Hallway Gallery & New Visions Studio and Gallery

I have two exhibitions up for the month of March.. The first one is a group polaroid show at The Hallway gallery in Jamaica Plain running from March 3-31. This show features the work of five artists who have all used the polaroid in different ways to create images. The work I have in this show is made in similar ways to the piece that you purchased. My work will be featured along side two good friends of mine, Ariele Baragona and Lindsay Metivier.

Lindsay Metivier also just opened up her own gallery/boutique in Jamaica Plain called Aviary, which is a half block away from The Hallway Gallery. They will have a permanent selection of photography books where I will have two of my hand made artist books for sale. These are two new books of mine that I have worked on for a while so I am excited to have them on display.

The second show I have is a big solo show at the New Visions Studio and Gallery, in Scranton PA from March 10th to April 5th, with the opening reception on Friday, March 11th 6-9 pm. They are a new gallery/darkroom and workshop space that a fellow classmate from MassArt opened up after graduation. This will be my biggest show yet, showcasing over thirty framed pieces. The exhibition, which is called Organic Darkroom, will consist of photograms, unique c-prints, polagrams and other darkroom/camera-less photography.

Check them out if your in either area.

Art in Everyday Objects

It seems that more and more lately, I come across places, things, and random stuff that reminds me of particular pieces of artwork. Yesterday, I was driving through Vermont and stopped in Montpelier, which is the state capitol. I went to a crepe place called The Skinny Pancake to indulge in some deliciousness. While waiting for my food, I unwrapped my silverware from the napkin and the second I saw the knife and fork, I instantly thought of a few images by Karl Blossfeldt.

Blossfeldt, who was a German botanist and artist at the turn of the century, photographed different plants, flowers, stems and other small natural forms with a camera he made himself. This camera magnified the plants way beyond their actual size, abstracting them into new forms. Blossfeldt's work has been a great influence in a lot of my current work so it was no wonder that he came to mind so quickly when seeing this silverware. I instantly looked up the image it made me think of, and I recreated it with the silverware and my camera phone.

This is the fork that instantly reminded me of Blossfeldt.

Original © Karl Blossfeldt Image.

My Recreation of the Blossfeldt Image.

Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery

I am very pleased to be taking part in this exhibition at The Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery in Reno, NV. The show is called MYSELF: A 66-person Survey of Contemporary Self-Portraiture. Not only is this exciting for me because of being in such a great show, but also because it was curated by Marjorie Vecchio, phD. Marjorie was actually my first color photography instructor when I attended Wright College in Chicago back in 2001. She introduced me to the idea of furthering my photographic education and suggested Boston, particularly MassArt, as a good option. What a true honor to be in this exhibition under her curation.

I will post an installation images from the show as soon as I get one. Stay tuned.

The Indie Photobook Library

This fall I submitted all of the books from the Make Book Blog to the Indie Photobook Library. They are all officially on their website now, with all the info about each book. This site is a fantastic place to find a lot of self published photo books. I recommend spending some time looking at this wonderful collection and seeing what they are all about.

Check out the Make Book Blog if you are interested in purchasing any of these titles.

A Delicate Place

Cell Phone Photography: Base of Vase

These four images were taken in the same exact spot at my day job. They are vases of different floral arrangements we get. They were taken in August of 2009, October of 2009 and two were taken in August of 2010. Since then, they have put up a wooden ledge behind where the vases sit, which now blocks the light that illuminates through the vases. I can no longer make these images.

Self Portrait with Amalia

Amalia left yesterday for two weeks in Argentina, and I miss her dearly. I honor her absence with this photograph I took of us in September.

Stony Brook. September, 2010.

New Images from Maine, Gloucester, Vermont and The Arboretum.

More Images from the several day trips that I have gotten to take the past 2 months or so. These were taken in Gloucester, Vermont, Maine and one from the Arboretum.

Found Piles Part 2: Massachusetts, Maine & Vermont

Here are several more piles that I have found scattered throughout my travels these past few months. A few you may recognize from previous post, but they definitely belong in this mini series of mine.

Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Fall 2010 : Photos and Misc.

This is the third and final post with work that I created at Haystack this fall. The photographs were all taken with a 4x5 camera, except for two regular Polaroids. Since my main focus this year was the Lumen Prints and the Polagrams, I didn't really have a main focus with what I wanted to actually photograph while there. I let my mind be very sporadic and just waited to find things that I felt were a little unusual.

The three greenish looking prints are something that I'm calling Chemical Transfers. Before I explain what they are, I do have to credit my new friend Julie Miller, who I just met at Haystack for coming up with the idea for these. She made about 10 of them first and I decided to try a few for myself. These are literally made from the leftover chemical residue that is left behind after I made each Polagram. The Polaroid film I used is this Fuji 100 speed film that is a peel off film, meaning I let the Polaroid develop for about 2 minutes then I peel it off the little chemical packet it is in. After peeling it away, you can still see the image that was just created on the chemical side of the packet. We would then place that chemical side down on a nice piece of thick paper and rub in into the paper for a couple minutes.

This pretty much wraps up all the work that I made there, other than a handmade coptic bound sketch book I made for Amalia, which maybe I will take a picture of and add it to this post down the road. Overall, I felt really productive while at Haystack and all these new ideas are leading me to a lot of other ideas. How wonderful. Stay tuned for some other things I have been working on the past couple months.