Searching After Wildness - journals of a photographic artist

Shows, Walks, Water

It’s been awhile since the last post. I don’t have an editor watching over my blog so that frees me to subject you to a rambling update.

The outdoor art festival season has finished for the year. There were a crazy few weeks, including a two week stretch where I participated in three art fairs and two gallery shows. Whew. Along the way, I was selected for a few awards, a nice surprise:

Best in Show – Penrod Arts Fair
Best of Show – Carmel International Arts Festival
Second Place – St. James Court Art Show 3rd St Section

With the art fairs waning, I got reacquainted with having free weekends. Let me tell you, it is so nice to have free weekends. Off to the woods we went. We had some nice overnights in the Hoosier National Forest and around Lake Michigan.

During one of the days at Lake Michigan, I took some casual shots that I didn’t think would amount to much. But after I got home, something unexpected about them stood out. Ideas come like that sometimes. When I’m not even serious, something different is revealed that could lead to a significant direction.

Up next: I’m participating in two holiday shows, one tomorrow and another next Friday. I wanted to offer something geared towards gift giving, so I’ve been making small prints framed to 8×10″. Until now, I haven’t ever shown my work so small. But, now seeing the completed work – they’re really fun. After years of making bigger and bigger prints, it’s nice to have something little and intimate. You can hold it in the palm of your hands.

Also, I’m teaching a Digital Fine Art Printing Workshop next weekend. There are still openings available. You can find the details about the holiday shows and the printing workshop at my events page.

And last, but not least: My project, Where the Fairies Are will be exhibited next month at Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage. Whoohoo! More details to come.

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The Fairies Are Live

A Chance Meeting – from Where The Fairies Are

My project Where The Fairies Are is now on the gallery section of the website. View it here.

I’ve been exploring themes of enchantment for a few years now, so you may guess that I’m really quite excited to present a collection of this work.

These photographs portray natural settings as more than what we expect them to be. They are a hope of things mystical and mysterious. If fairies existed, where would they be? They would be on the edge of a world that is breaking into ours. They would be among the miraculous that we take as mundane.

There will be opportunities to see pieces from this collection in the next couple of months. I’ll keep you posted.

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Where The Fairies Are

I’ve been putting together a body of work exploring the notion of fairies. Not so much what they are, but why we may need them and what would it be like if we had it in mind to actually look. A couple of years ago, I wrote about the process of re-enchantment. I’ll be posting some more entries on the topic and new images from this series. For now, let us let the story begin…

Where the Fairies Are

There is a wonder in the world around us, a wonder that has been neglected and obscured. In the bustle of our lives, we have let that sense of wonder decay. We have become strangers with the notion of enchantment. To discover something enchanting is to take in, in a way that changes the very representation of the thing.

These photographs portray natural settings as more than what we expect them to be. They are a hope of things mystical and mysterious. If fairies existed, where would they be? They would be on the edge of a world that is breaking into ours. They would be among the miraculous that we take as mundane.

Perhaps by imagining, we can bring into existence what is already there, waiting for us to become re-enchanted.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries”
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Three Photography Shows This Weekend

There are three excellent photography shows opening in central Indiana galleries this weekend, with receptions on Friday, July 3rd. Go out and celebrate the goodness!

Pictura Gallery
Pictura Gallery in Bloomington is opening their Landscape Invitational show, featuring some of my new favorite photographers. I’m there as well, but well, I’m not a new favorite of mine, er.. I suppose.

Jul 3 – Aug 4
Landscape Invitational, Pictura Gallery, Bloomington, IN
Opening Reception: Friday, July 3, 2009 5 – 8pm

Dean Johnson Gallery
I also have a piece in the Black and White show, opening at the Dean Johnson Gallery:

Jul 3 – 30
Black and White Show, Dean Johnson Gallery, Indianapolis, IN
Opening Reception: Friday, July 3, 2009 5 – 9pm

“Not everything is seen in black and white, but it is in this show. Check out some of the best photographers in Indianapolis as they focus on the purest form of their art, in our Black & White exhibit.”

AV Framing Gallery
It would also be well worth your time to visit the AV Framing Gallery, with the debut of a new photography space by my good friends John and Joslyn Crowe.

Jul 3 – Aug 22
Life Has Moments: intimate and client work by John Crowe and Joslyn Virgin Crowe — Crowe’s Eye Photography.
AV Framing Gallery, Indianapolis, IN
Opening Reception: Friday July 3, 2009 5 – 9pm

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I’m Andy and I Have Nature Deficit Disorder

I live in the city and I love it. However, something about living this way is not quite right.

I grew up in the suburbs. The backyard of my family’s house came up to a woods where we neighborhood kids spent a lot of time getting lost. We made hideouts, buried treasure and went on long explorations. If we explored really, really far we would get to the other side of the woods and arrive at a street corner with an ice cream shop. To my 9 year old eyes, those woods were practically endless.

That was my initial taste of wildness. Those years were followed by TV, Nintendo, classrooms without windows, cars, shopping malls, air conditioning and cubicles. The wildness went from the expected to the other. You may be familiar with “the other”. It is that which is different from your daily experience. We tend to fear the other and make up excuses. Dangerous, unknown. You could get kidnapped, or eaten by a bear. The other is uncomfortable. Humidity and bugs. Excuses or not, I want it. For my sanity, I probably need it.

Henry David Thoreau wrote:

We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things by mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

“In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World”, is a photography book by Eliot Porter published in 1962.  The title was taken from a passage by Thoreau. The book is a masterpiece of color nature photography. It is a statement about the lure of wild places and a celebration of the beautiful in what we mistake as common. And here we are, decades after Thoreau and Porter. 

And here am I, living a life after wildness – after Porter’s book and after a time when the wild was a regular part of society. At the same time, I am after wildness – after, as in “in pursuit or quest of”. There is a struggle between my contemporary, city life and my need of the wild. This has been gnawing at me for the past few years and I suppose will be for some time. Looking at my recent photographic projects, the pursuit of the wild was there waiting for me to realize that I have been searching all along. 

This need for wildness in my life is now strong enough that it requires a name. At the same time, this blog needs more focus (photography pun, hah). Blog, I christen thee, “Searching After Wildness”. May we all learn something worth living for.

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Big Sky

One on my recent projects, “Big Sky” is now on the gallery section of the website. View it here.

There are places where the trees are sparce, the cities become scattered and the sky revealed. The heavens, vaster than my imagination can hold, rests on broad shoulders of earth and stone. I am no longer at the center.

Most of these images are from the two month Camper Van Chuck road trip. There was a certain kind of pleasure in making images of broad landscapes, which I otherwise generally avoid. I avoid them because I want my images to have a bit of intimacy, a perspective that delves deeper than a flitting glimpse of a wide vista.

But, how could I ignore those luscious far reaching skies?  So, I go where the spirit leads. Or the gut as it may be, although I don’t think indigestion played a part.

You can see several of these images this Friday as part of the Open Studio walks. Come by and have a chat:

April 3rd, 2009, 7 – 10pm
First Friday Open Studio 
Studio #302
Murphy Art Center
1043 Virginia Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46203

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A Short Break For A New Beginning

On February 7th, 2009, I became a father. Welcome to the world, little Ruby. Oh, man is she a cutie. As you may guess, the past few weeks have been a doting mix of wonder, random sleep, foggy work and diapers. 

I’m gradually getting back into the routine of things. Life is sweet.

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Comments

A few people have mentioned to me that they tried to post comments on the blog, but had trouble registering user accounts. So, I’ve enabled public comments. Let’s all play together!

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Little Pieces at Pictura Gallery

Pictura is a wonderful new gallery in Bloomington, Indiana. As far as I’m aware, it’s the only full time gallery in the region dedicated to art photography. If you enjoy photography as an art form, they are well worth a visit. While you are there, thank David, Brenda and Martha for the great work they are doing.

To add to my enthusiasm, Pictura is hosting an exhibit of my latest series of images, Little Pieces all Together. This body of work looks into enchanted coordination within the details of the natural world. Last month’s Pictura opening drew quite a crowd. Come and see what the fuss is about!

Little Pieces All Together - Opening Reception May 9, 2008 - 5:00pm to 8:00pm

Pictura Photographer’s Note - May 28, 2008 – 7:00pm
I’ll also be kicking off the Photographer’s Note series with an artist’s talk at 7pm on May 28th. See you there.

Pictura Gallery
On the Square at Sixth and College
122 W. Sixth St. 
Bloomington, IN 47404

Upcoming Events

Here are a few other upcoming events:

Blog posts may be slim for the next couple of weeks. In addition to the shows, I’m also leaving for a backpacking trip in the canyons of southern Utah. Until then, I wish you well.
 

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Little Pieces All Together

If you have been following my work, you may have noticed that many of the images depict lots of small bits of things: leaves, grass and bits of trees. They are abstractions of organized chaos, if you will. I started making photographs like this about two years ago. I didn’t start out seeking to make these kinds of images. It was after the fact, as I reviewed my shots, that I would notice I was attracted to these types of compositions.

Just about a year ago, I tried to explain why I was drawn to these coordinated little pieces, which resulted in a blog post.

…There is something really amazing about orchestras and choirs. Perhaps it’s the large group of people, each with their own talents, textures, voices and parts. When they all move together, they create something wonderful, something larger and outside of themselves…. This fascination has tumbled into an appropriation – at first subconscious and now intentional. I’m viewing nature and considering the orchestra.

Now that I had a notion of where I was going, I no longer had a random trend. I had a project. In the past couple of months, I’ve been editing down the images to a smaller, cohesive portfolio. And now, I’m finally at a point where I feel it’s ready to share. The project is called Little Pieces All Together. You can view the images, along with a statement about the project, in the gallery area of my website.

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