Atelier

Unique images, hand crafted, sculptural objects are the focus of Naohiro Maeda‘s series Origami-grams. These soft cyanotypes hold organic and structured shapes and textures, playing with light and shadow. Maeda’s idea that these are memory keepers posited an interesting theory. How do we transfer our own notion onto an abstract pattern, like a rorschach test.

untitled No. 1

Origami-grams 

These photographs are portraits of origami as a memory keepers. I bent, tore, arranged and rearranged origamis and noted became aware that they held the memory of my actions in their delicate small thin physical shapes. The resulting images can appear both two- and three- dimensional, playing with the viewer’s perceptions of flatness and space in both the subject and picture plane.

This series was created using cyanotype materials, colored pencils, and origami papers similar to those I played with as a child in Japan. As an artist who works primarily in digital photography and Photoshop, I particularly enjoyed working with my hands to create these one-off images.

Untitled N. 2

We asked Naohiro about his Atelier experience –

Which of these images was the impetus for this series? How did it inform how you completed the series?

Untitled N. 3

What do you hope we as viewers take away from viewing your work?

I hope I can deliver some sense of musicality and tranquility in images.

Untitled N. 4

How the Atelier has helped you hone your vision as an artist?

I have challenges for reviewing/editing my own work and finding a direction to construct a portfolio. Meg and classmates kindly guided me thorough the portfolio making process.

Tell us what is next for you creatively.

I have an ongoing project of landscape photos and new one with abstract.

About Naohiro Maeda – 

Naohiro Maeda is an artist from Japan who resides in Salem, MA. He investigates psychological landscapes and collective memories through photographic practices. His works were have been exhibited in the United States, United Kingdom and Russia, including the Griffin Museum of Photography and The Curated Fridge, and featured in The Boston Globe. He is represented by AREA gallery in Boston.

To see more of Naohiro Maeda‘s photography log onto his website.

Architecture is an amazing combination of science and art. Balancing feats of concrete, steel and glass, brick and mortar, asphalt and cobbles, structures rise up around us. So many take for granted the structures that keep us safe, working, moving and shelter us from coming storms. Kathleen DeCarlo-Plano took to the streets to mix architecture, humanity and abstraction to create images combining organic and rigid texture, people and place in her series Urban Awareness.

Urban Awareness

I’m fascinated with the inherent beauty and geometry of the city.  However, what is even more intriguing is how we, as humans, can lose ourselves within our own minds dreaming of either the future or the past and transport through this beauty without noticing the subtlety around us.  The texture, strength, arrangement, thought, and soul left within the structures by their creators is so pervasive…yet often unnoticed.  With camera in hand, I strove to capture the incredible dichotomy within this human condition first-hand.  It is in studying closely individuals in this state, that allows me to strive to transcend this condition and simply appreciate the incredible beauty of our surroundings within the moment. Urban Awareness is a call to awakening to the here and now, the beauty of the moment.

I feel passion for blending scale and geometry, while using available light, shadows, and leading lines to draw the viewer into looking at a city in a more deliberate manner.

We asked Kathleen about her experience with the Atelier –

What do you hope we as viewers take away from viewing your work? 

To see the calm and beauty of a cityscape that is often not observed by the individual immersed in that environment.

How the Atelier has helped hone your vision as an artist?

I have always deeply loved photography but was busy with another career and family life.  The Atelier is my first step in honing my artist perceptive.  It gave me the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and showcase my first exhibit.  It also gave me the opportunity to learn from a wonderful teacher and group of supportive colleagues.   I plan on continuing my artist development though the Atelier in the fall. Presently, I photographing my family and neighborhood daily as social distancing is now our new normal.

About Kathleen DeCarlo-Plano

Kathleen DeCarlo-Plano is a ​street photographer ​whose graphic images capture​ the beauty and ​spontaneity of the human experience in the city​. ​

DeCarlo-Plano​’s photography is informed by her work as a psychologist.​  She finds inspiration in​ observing, interpreting, and photographing​ how people relate to one another and to the environment.

Her work will be exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, in the spring of 2020.  ​DeCarlo-Plano has studied at the New England School of Photography in Boston, MA, and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Find Kathy on Instagram – @kathydecarloplano

Many major cities have an area where the Chinese communities congregate and live. Chinatowns are legendary in major cities like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and Chicago. Photographer Tony Schwartz chose to focus his lens on Boston’s Chinatown, connecting with locals who gave him access and insight into the local culture and community. Photographed in black and white, these intimate portraits of the people and place, give a documentary style insiders look into a vibrant community rich in culture.

Two Jacks

About Chinatown – 

March of the Chefs

Chinatown is the only true immigrant-derived ethnic enclave left in Boston, my hometown. My interest in this community was sparked by witnessing street scenes identical to those I had experienced while visiting China. Since the late 1870’s, Chinatown historically has served as a home for Chinese immigrants and laborers, and as a textile center. It now is a community fighting, so far successfully, to keep itself intact; it is the hub of the Chinese community of greater Boston. In this exhibit I wish the viewer to see beyond the restaurants: The workers and residents in Mary Soo Hoo Park, playing cards and Chinese “chess,” while speaking only Chinese; stores selling traditional herbal medicines; bakeries making and selling typical Chinese pastries; and the existence there of branches of many international Chinese family associations. The Chinese language and culture still are very much alive in Chinatown, despite the threats it faces from the powerful forces of gentrification, compression of its space, and an affordable housing crisis. As a second generation American, I can identify with the stories of the several immigrants I interviewed and photographed, who discussed their history and their families’ successes since coming to the United States. As in the case of other immigrant groups, they are making our city, region and nation both stronger and more vibrant, while also enriching its soul.

We asked Tony about his experience with the Atelier –

Which of these images was the impetus for this series? How did it inform how you completed the series?

The Next Move

I was walking through Chinatown and saw men playing cards and Chinese “Chess’” outdoors in the Mary Soo Hoo Park, exactly as I had seen when traveling to China. The photos taken of them doing this led me to wish to know and see and photograph more.

What do you hope we as viewers take away from viewing your work?

Seeing Chinatown as more than a bunch of ethnic restaurants, but as an ethnic enclave rich with culture. It is one of the many immigrant communities that have made our country successful and interesting.

How the Atelier has helped you hone your vision as an artist? 

I had done two other series of images and interviews, both of which have been published as photobooks. I was searching for something new in direction, but after trying several different mini projects during the Atelier, it became clear to me that this is what I really love to do: Photograph people and tell their story in images and their own words.

Sunday Morning

Tell us what is next for you creatively.

I plan to do much more with this project, which I consider to be half done. More interviews and more images/portaits, to tell their stories. I believe that the story of a people is best developed by telling individual stories rather than deciding on a summary.

Susan Fung

AKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank profusely two people without whom this exhibition would not have been possible. These are Susan Fung and Eric Schwartz, who are co-authors on the narrative aspects of this project. Susan provided her time and guidance and introduced me to important components of the Chinatown landscape, her Gin Family Association and the people I interviewed and photographed. She also served as translator when necessary. My son Eric Schwartz created a video record of the interviews, without which the narratives for the project would have been incomplete.

About Tony Schwartz – 

Tony Schwartz is a fine art and documentary photographer residing in Boston, MA and Peru, VT, USA. He has done drawing, oil painting and clay sculpture, but since retiring from a career in academic veterinary medicine at Tufts University, in 2005, he has devoted himself fully to photography.

Making Pastry Filling

Tony has traveled extensively and while his subject matter includes landscapes and animals, he most enjoys portraying people, their environment and their culture. He does this through showing the images of individuals, in combination with relating their personal stories. He believes that individual stories, in sufficient numbers, tell the story of a people and their culture. He has produced three photobooks. His latest, 2019, such effort concerns the serious impact of ecotourism and mountain gorilla protection on the Batwa Pygmies of Uganda. He was invited to present this story through a photo essay in the Solstice Literary Magazine in 2019; it is on-line in the Social Documentary Network; and he has lectured about it at Tufts University, at the Griffin Museum of Photography, and will do so again at Brandeis University in April 2020.

Tony’s photographic education and training were at the New England School of Photography in Boston, at Cone Editions in Vermont. He participated in several photo workshops with Karin Rosenthal, where he served as the printing assistant, as well as in travel workshops in Tanzania, Morocco and Mexico. He has received many awards for his work, regionally and nationally, including two from Santa Fe Workshop competitions. Internationally, he has been a Charles Dodson Gala Award finalist.

Tony Schwartz has had solo exhibitions at the Copley Society of Art in Boston, where he is a juried member and “Copley Artist,” at the Griffin Museum of Photography, and at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. He has exhibited in many juried regional and national exhibitions, and internationally in Ottawa, Canada and Barcelona, Spain. His work is represented by the 3 Pears Gallery, in Dorset, VT; his art licensing agent is Suzanne Cruise Creative Services, Inc., Leawood, KS.

For more information and to see more of Tony Schwartz‘s creativity log onto his website.

Darrell Roak’s series, Noble Waterfalls, is a reflection and meditation on the forces of nature, power of water and grace and beauty found in the dark stillness of the forest.

Royalston Falls

Finding solace in the depths of the forest, Roak’s connection to the power of water and rock, carving new paths, is captured in these long exposure landscape studies. In his artist statement he talks of “the rumble that resonates through the bedrock, the mist that permeates the atmosphere and the ethereal beauty of its flowing water contrasting with the ledge, which it has, over centuries, taken dominance and ownership cutting its distinctive path”

All beautifully captured, and printed as platinum/palladium prints. The softness of the surface creates the pictorialist mood set by the deep shadows and rich blacks of the prints.

We asked Darrell about his series and the ideas behind it.

Jailer Falls

Which of these images was the impetus for this series?

If there is one photo, it is Jailer Falls, which didn’t make the cut but is included as one of the website photos. This was one of the first photos I captured on film. I had repelled down a 30-foot ledge with my gear to a fishing hole I remembered from my childhood. The resultant photo was well worth the struggle.

How did it inform how you completed the series?

This waterfall is not accessible or well known to anyone but local residents; in fact, my folks weren’t aware of it. I became aware that Mother Nature has placed her works of beauty all about. This led me to print some of the many waterfalls I have photographed.

I had been dabbling with alt-process for a while; ziatype, cyanotype, platinum/palladium… Entering into this Atelier session (my fifth), I was determined that my exhibition photos would be alt-process; my instinct led me toward cyanotype. Although I liked some of the blue images, once I printed one with platinum/palladium my course was plotted. This also helped in the ultimate title of the series, “Noble Waterfalls”. Noble for the majesty of Mother Nature’s works and Noble for the metals used for printing; Platinum and Palladium.

Laural Falls

What do you hope we as viewers take away from viewing your work?

When I photograph, I have a vision of what I want to show my audience, basically an ethereal presentation of the real-world subject. It is always a great pleasure to have my audience members to reflect my vision.

How the Atelier has helped you hone your vision as an artist?

As I mentioned earlier, this has been my fifth Atelier session. I get reinforcement of the basic class materials but this isn’t the greatest benefit. For me, the peer development is the magic. I have been dropped into groups of individually minded photographers and have exited amongst societies of bonded artists. Over 16 weeks, we have molded each other and each other’s art into fine gems worthy of lifelong memories and appreciations.

PIxley Falls

Tell us what is next for you creatively.

Hopefully, my current plans won’t be foiled by Covid-19. But, I am planning to visit and photograph the Stave-Churches of Norway. These are mid-evil churches built as the Roman Catholics moved across Europe and Scandinavia. Of great interest to me are the mingling of Pagan an Christian carvings as well as the unique Stave architecture. Ultimately, this portfolio will lead to an exhibition and/or a book.

About Darrell Roak – 

Darrell Roak is a photographer whose nature is to bring an ethereal appearance to his photographs. Darrell began his photographic journey in 2010 when he took his first workshop at Maine Media. He has since expanded his experience through workshops across The United States. Darrell has been an Artist in Residence at Light Grey Art Camp in Western Norway and he has attended a printing residency at Cone Edition Press in Vermont. Among his contemporary advisors are Tillman Crane and Russell Young.

The subjects of Darrell’s photos lean toward abandoned structures and out-of-the-way spots, which remind one of days gone by. He uses an assortment of cameras to capture his photographs including digital, large-format and pinhole. His photos are printed using the Piezography digital process as well as Alternative Processes: Cyanotype, Ziatype and Platinum/Palladium.

Darrell’s photographs have been exhibited at Carnegie Visual Arts Center in Decatur, Alabama, Photo Place Gallery and Vermont Center for Photography in Vermont, and The Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts. Darrell’s images are also included in personal collections throughout The United States.

From left to right – Bottled Water, Rooftop Swimming Pool and Posers

When the Trees are Gone, Diana Cheren Nygren’s well crafted immersive series combines human and architectural interaction. These images are intriguing and humorous, asking us as viewers to linger a little longer, question our connections to nature, our communities and beg the question of human intervention in our surroundings. The content sneaks up on you. Of course that bather should be on top of a billboard. But then you stop, think again and realize that the marriage of these two ideas couldn’t be farther apart. Yet instinctively as the viewer it all seems so normal.

About the series – 

Surroundings play a dominant role in shaping our experience. I treasure the city and try to make space for quiet contemplation within it. The question of the struggle between nature and the built environment is ever more central in urban life. In this series, relaxed beachgoers find themselves amidst carefully composed urban settings in front of dramatic skies. They are searching without seeming to find what they are looking for.  Peaceful moments of strolling along the beach or standing listening to the waves while choosing the perfect spot to sit down, are inevitably infused with tension and frustration. The beach becomes rising tides, threatening the very foundation of the city.  The clash of nature and city results in an absurd profusion of visual noise and little relief. The resulting images lay bare the illusory nature of my urban fantasy and the problematic nature of the future that lies ahead for humanity.

We followed up with a few questions for Diana about her process and her experience with the Atelier.

American Flag (early work)

Which of these images was the impetus for this series? How did it inform how you completed the series?

The image which was the impetus for this series is not among those included in the show.  It has long since been discarded from the series altogether.  While it comes out of earlier projects, this work is substantially different from anything I have done before.  It took me a while playing around with this compositing of beach figures and urban setting to figure out what I really wanted to say and which images communicated that successfully.  The responses of Meg, Amy, and my classmates to the work were critical in helping me refine my vision and the selection of images.

How the Atelier has helped you hone your vision as an artist?

Having photographed for many years, I believed that I had arrived at a style and point of view.  I struggle at times to articulate it, but my focus was on narrowing my work.  The Atelier, instead, pushed me to experiment with subject matter and styles that were entirely outside of my comfort zone and that I did not think I was interested in.  Ironically, I think being pushed to reach in this way has helped to sharpen my voice rather than diluting it.

Tell us what is next for you creatively.

I would like to take the Atelier again.  I have no idea if it will have as substantial an impact a second time around or not, but I think it’s a good addition to my practice regardless.  I am also beginning work on a book project (or two).

About Diana Cheren Nygren – 

Diana Cheren Nygren is a fine art photographer from Boston, Massachusetts. Her work explores the visual character of place defined through physical environment and weather. Place has implications for our experience of the world, and reveals hints about the culture around it.

Diana was trained as an art historian with a focus on modern and contemporary art, and the relationship of artistic production to its socio-political context.  Her emphasis on careful composition in her photographic work, as well as her subject matter, reflects this training.

Diana’s photographs have received numerous honorable mentions from the Lucie Foundation and have been included in a number of  juried exhibitions at Subjectively Objective, PhotoPlace Gallery, the Midwest Center for Photography, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Arlington Center for the Arts, the Griffin Museum of Photography, and the Curated Fridge.  A book of her photographs, “Capturing the Light”, was published in 2017.

Follow Diana Cheren Nygren

Website – Diana Cheren Nygren

Instagram – @dianacherennygrenphotography

Facebook – Diana Cheren Nygren Photography