The Founder's Gallery

Statement
“When something is festering in your memory or your imagination, laws of silence don’t work. It’s like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning.” – Tennessee Williams, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

I’ve been afraid of letting go of the life I was programmed to live. I was taught that having a family and a home and a church and a regular job meant that I was successful. My own family life was difficult and displaced, not something I wished to reproduce. I am distrustful of both people and the idea of the American Dream. I’ve avoided any of the rites and rituals that signify “success” but failed to replace a broken mythology with any other. I began searching for signs of meaningful relationships and missed opportunities, trying to piece together a map of how to be. I needed to look at the past, see it clearly, and then see beyond it. Symbols of a damaged childhood, when contained within a frame, no longer carry the unbounded force of memory. Signs of connection, when taken out of context, reveal themselves to be fallacies. I have been afraid that I will drown in other people. I couldn’t see how water can soothe and sustain as well as destroy. Thomas Roma likens the making of photographs to Robert Frost’s idea of making a poem: “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness, a lovesickness.” These pictures come from that emotional space of longing, of wishing for things that never were and might never be. I can only see a feeling clearly when I disarm and immobilize it, pin it to the wall and examine it with the others. I’m learning how to be alone without being lonely, how to be carried without being overwhelmed, and to walk away from what I want to leave behind.      – JM

“Underneath the chlorinated swimming pool waters, Jennifer McClure’s figure sinks into a swirl of bubbles in her lonely yet serene poolside moments.” – Kat Kiernan, Gallery Director Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA  on  the exhibition called Summer Splash.

Bio
Jennifer McClure is a fine art and documentary photographer based in New York City. She uses the camera to ask and answer questions. She is interested in appearances and absences, short stories and movies without happy endings. Her work is about solitude and a poignant, ambivalent yearning for connection.

The child of a Marine, she moved frequently and traumatically. She decorated her walls with traces of her past; photographs became anchor points. After acquiring a B.A. in English Theory and Literature, Jennifer began a long career in restaurants. She returned to photography in 2001, taking classes at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography, where she was a teaching assistant for many years.

Jennifer was awarded CENTER’s Editor’s Choice by Susan White of Vanity Fair in 2013 and has been exhibited in numerous shows across the country. She was a 2017 Critical Mass finalist and twice received the Arthur Griffin Legacy Award from the Griffin Museum of Photography. Lectures include the School of Visual Arts i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration series, Fotofusion, FIT, NY Photo Salon and Columbia Teacher’s College. She has taught workshops at PDN’s PhotoPlus Expo, the Maine Media Workshops, and Fotofusion. She was a thesis reviewer and advisor for the Master’s Program at both the School of Visual Arts and New Hampshire Institute of Art. Her work has been featured in publications such as GUP, The New Republic, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, L’Oeil de la Photographie, The Photo Review, Dwell, Adbusters, and PDN. She also founded the Women’s Photo Alliance in 2015.

Read Mark Feeney’s Globe Review

Jennifer McClure’s Website

Optics’ Interview with Jennifer McClure

“My husband won’t tell me his first name.” Judy, Parkinson’s dementia

Artists Statement
I am a neurologist and this is a long-term project about dementia, which includes portraits, natural illusions and images of perceptions paired with quotes from my patients. I would never have predicted that at this stage in my career I would be seeing so many people with dementia. When I was in medical school in the 1980s there were about 700, 000 people with dementia in this country, now there are nearly 6 million. That number will triple by mid-century and if we live long enough one in three of us will develop dementia and one in two of us will care for someone with dementia. By mid-century it will cost the U.S $1.2 trillion. One disease will wipe out the Medicare budget. We must deal with this reality from a sociocultural and economic standpoint because there is no cure in sight. It is the single greatest epidemic that industrialized countries will face. It is our destiny.

Because there is no cure or effective treatment, and I see people with dementia on a daily and long-term basis, I wanted to use photography to get to know my patients a little better, and for them to know me a little better. I will go to their home, spend a few hours with them and when they come back to see me in my clinic some of them know me not as their neurologist but as a friend that came to their home and made pictures. It’s a more social visit, less stressful, we know each other better and Ican do my job a little better. What else is there?

I would like you to look at these images as if it was you, or someone close to you. How would you like to be cared for when your time comes? -VD

Bio

Virgil DiBiase (b.1963) lives in rural Indiana with his wife and two donkeys. He is a photographer, part time farm hand and full-time neurologist. His parents were Italian immigrants who moved to rural Salem Ohio in the 1950s, 15 miles from Youngstown Ohio. He grew up in the woods, surrounded by nature. His father was a photographer and taught him how to develop B&W film and make gelatin silver prints in the basement darkroom. Back then everything was in B&W: TV, magazines, newspapers and photography. Black and white photography was his first language and so he continues to work in B&W. And he continues to walk in the woods with his camera.

He has exhibited his work in many juried group shows including Griffin Museum of Photography, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Edition One Gallery, Soho Photo Gallery and Providence Center for Photographic Arts. He’s been published in B&W magazine, LFI Magazine, Burn Magazine, The Cresset, and recently PBS News hour, Brief but Spectacular. He’s had solo shows at the Rangefinder Gallery in Chicago, Strimbu Gallery at Valparaiso University and the Workspace Gallery in Lincoln Nebraska. He’s been short listed twice for the Royal Photographic Society International Print Exhibition and has been a Critical Mass Finalist for the last 3 years.

 

We all remember that suspenseful moment. The one right before you jump, when your feet are still on the ground, and time slows down as you contemplate leaping into the unknown water below. For some, the experience is one of play and excitement. For others the recollection may incite different feelings, possibly of anxiety and fear or of wonder at what lies beneath in the water below. These images, culled from Arthur Griffin’s archives, are frozen transitory moments depicting divers suspended in air and swimmers floating in water. Now frozen in time, Arthur Griffin has captured these brief moments in between take off and landing and just before they sliced the water. The images are reminiscent of childhood, of places hidden in the woods reserved for summer vacations, or of public city pools, where children gather to keep cool. Arthur’s photographs are reflections of a familiar experience; one that many can recollect.

“The Black woman is the most unprotected, unloved woman on earth…
She is the only flower on earth…that grows unwatered.” — Kola Boof

“Oh, How She Blooms! III” is rooted in her interest in the quote by Kola Boof. The symbolism of dried floral, epoxy resin, and portraits is a physical manifestation of her glorification of Black women. These handmade sculptures are a visual representation of her desire to preserve and protect Black women; to keep them blooming infinitely.

“Oh, How She Blooms! III” is featured in the Hall Gallery at the Griffin Museum April 7 through May 1, 2016. An opening reception takes place on May 1, 2016, 4-7:00 PM.

Symone is a California native, residing in Georgia. She currently attends Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, GA seeking her BFA in Photography. “I consider myself an image-maker,” says Walker. My work ranges from effervescent to nostalgic. I enjoy all aspects of documentary and fine art photography and I explore other fine art mediums including sculpture, installation art, and printmaking.”

PHOTOBOOK 2014 is an annual competition open to photographers in the United States and abroad who have self-published a photobook. This competition was offered by Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson NY for the fifth year. The competition results were exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery and forty-two books are now traveling to the Griffin Museum of Photography. Karen Davis, co-director of the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY and Paula Tognarelli, executive director and curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography were the jurors for Photobook 2014.

Photobook 2014, is featured in the Hall Gallery at the Griffin Museum January 8 through March 1, 2015. An opening reception with the artists takes place on January 10, 7-8:30 p.m. Magdalena Solé has a gallery talk and tour of Mississippi Delta at 4:00 PM. Brandon Thibodeaux has a gallery talk and tour of When Morning Comes at 5 PM. Bryan David Griffith has a members’ talk on his exhibition The Last Bookstores at 6:15 PM. The talks are FREE.

Best of Show photobooks were awarded to Miki Hasegawa, The Path of Million Pens; Michael Hunold, SHOOT; Linda Morrow, Calla; and Rebecca Sittler. All the Presidents’ Men. Exhibitors include: Raymond Adams, America Witnessed; Thomas Alleman, The American Apparel; Jim Baab, Instagram Photography 2011-2014; Rosie Barnes, Understanding Stanley; Karen Bell, Color Field; Karin Borghouts, The House of My Childhood Burned Down & I Took Pictures; Lilian Caruana, Rebels: Punks & Skinheads of the East Village 1984-1987; Sebastian Collett, Vanishing Point; Melissa Eder, Bushes and Balls; Andrew Fedynak, In the Light of a Fading Sun; Deena Feinberg, Morning Meditations; Paola Ferrario, 19 Pictures, 22 Recipes; Andrew Frost, The Northeast Kingdom; Preston Gannaway, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea; Richard Gaston, Lancaster City; Cathryn Griffith, Weaving Hopes & Prayers; Anne Howard, All that Remains; Jos Jansen, Seeds: On the Origin of Food Crops; Robbie Kaye, Beauty and Wisdom; Kay Kenny, Into the Night In the Middle of Nowhere; Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman, Processed Views: Surveying the Industrial Landscape; Robert Lipgar, Returning; Tom Lowe, Mojave Moonlight: A Series of Nightscapes; Bruce Morton, Forgottonia; Alex Nichols, Proof That Nothing Matters; Franc Palaia, NightLife: Shadow Paintings of Richard Hambleton; Mark Parascandola, Carabanchel; Nathan Pearce, Midwest Dirt; Jaye R. Phillips, Pulse; Don Russell, Caught on Wire; Dianne Jaquith Schaefer, Crummett Mountain Farm; Liz Steketee, Family Chronic – Samuel The Fox; Kris Vervaeke, AD Infinitum; Ira Wagner, Superior Apartments; Nicholas Whitman, Sea Shore Sky & Ice; Angilee Wilkerson, Happenings: The Wondrous Prairie; Heidi Woodman, Gold Fever; and Sebastian Zimmermann, Fifty Shrinks.

There are growing options available for self-publishing a book such as on-demand (blurb, lulu, viovio, iphoto, etc.); small run offset or web printing/publishing firms, binderies. For the competition if photobooks submitted had been hand-made/bound, they had to be available in multiples of at least 25. Entrants could submit up to three different titles that are self-published photography books of any size, format, or style: hard cover, soft cover, case-wraps, landscape, portrait, square, color, black and white.

Submissions were judged on the basis of: cover design, strength of the photography, subject matter of the book, page layouts, editing and sequencing and emotional impact of the overall book. All Submissions had to be original works of authorship created by the photographer who submitted the Submission.

“A photobook relies on the image to form visual sentences,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director and curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “A photobook that is produced well can transport us in time and place just as any book produced with the written word.”

Erwin G. Markowitz has been shooting photographs since he was gifted a Kodak Bullet at age thirteen.

Markowitz was the president and cofounder of Red Knit Mills where he worked with textile manufacturing and oversaw all aspects of design, production and marketing of high quality knitted fabrics for the majority of his career. The influence of textile design is evident in his hand-made prints. “When a print slowly comes to life in a tray of developer, it is magic! It is still always a thrill for me when that image once seen in the viewfinder comes to life in the darkroom,” says Markowitz.

A series of Markowitz’s photographs, Selections from the Archive will be featured in the Hall Gallery of the Griffin Museum December 11, 2014 through December 30, 2014. An opening reception with the artist is also scheduled for December 11, 2014 from 6-8pm.

In my early days of making photographs, Erwin states, “All of my film was processed in a dish or soup bowl in the family linen closet in our New York apartment using the “see-saw” method. Film those days cost about a quarter a roll and the developer that came in a tube with a cork at either end plus one in the middle to separate the two types of chemicals was all of a nickel.”

Erwin G. Markowitz, 91, is an accomplished photographer who has been taking pictures for over 75 years. He’s captured compelling images across North America, Europe and Africa, focusing primarily in black and white photography, particularly shooting and printing nature, landscape, wildlife and scenic prints. “Like most people,” says Markowitz, “my photography often revolves around my other interests and hobbies-primarily those that take me closest to nature. Informal portraits of people in their natural habitat have become an additional focus for me.”

Markowitz has exhibited his work at the Griffin Museum of Photography, The Ward Museum in Maryland and the Fitchburg Art Museum in addition to galleries in Amherst and the Worcester area. He has also won various awards throughout his photography career.

Lear Levin has been shooting photographs since he bought is first camera – a Speed Graphic – with money from his paper route as a child.
After graduating from The University of Southern California’s Cinema and Drama Schools, he became a director of award winning documentaries, short films and (literally) thousands of TV commercials, one of which, for Prince Spaghetti, is the longest running in the history of the medium. His motion picture film work is preserved in the permanent collection of such institutions as The Museum of Modern Art in New York and The George Eastman House.
A series of Levin’s photographs, Burlesque and Cabaret, is featured in the Hall Gallery of the Griffin Museum October 14, 2014 through December 4, 2014. An opening reception with the artist is October 18, 2014, 7-8:30 p.m.

“I used to be a regular visitor to The Old Howard Theater in Boston’s Scully Square in the 1950’s and I snuck into the Globe Theater in Atlantic City New Jersey prior that time when I was only 13 years old,” says Lear Levin. “During my college days I frequented The New Follies Theater on Main Street in Los Angeles, where as an aspiring filmmaker, I often hung out backstage with the cast in the hope of some day making a film on Burlesque. I never did make that film. However, when I retired from motion pictures and took up still photography, Platinum and 3-Color Gum Printing, it seemed natural for me to finally explore what the colorful backstage life might have looked like during the old days of Burlesque.”

While directing from the Bayous to Bangladesh for film and television, Levin also continued his personal vision of fine art photography. His series, “Burlesque and Cabaret” is an evocation of Weimar Berlin and Backstage at ‘Minsky’s,” New York City, circa 1930’s. Levin’s regard for past as well as the his feel for archival, textural printing techniques continues in his darkroom where he finishes his work using methods such as Gum Dichromate and Platinum/Palladium to create the hand-made images reminiscent of late nineteenth and early twentieth century photography. His three and four-color gum dichromate and platinum/palladium prints will be featured at the Griffin Museum.

Levin has exhibited his work at Iris Gallery in Boston, Moss & Moss Gallery in San Francisco, Davis Orton Gallery and in a group show at CCCA gallery, Hudson NY.

Meg Birnbaum will give a members’ talk at 6:15 PM before the exhibit opening on October 18, 2014 at 7 PM.

Kate Jordahl photographs places where spirit of the earth and the human spirit come together. The black and white landscapes she creates are reflections on the crooked, unmapped roads of our lives.

A series of Jordahl’s photographs, Crystal Day, is featured in the Hall Gallery of the Griffin Museum April 10, 2014 through June 8, 2014. An opening reception is April 10, 2014, 7-8:30 p.m.

"I plan my journey for "destinations" like national parks and World Heritage sites and then celebrate as the places between are also full of visual wonder. For all the spaces, both recognized and by the way, I strive to recognize and capture the spirit and power of place in my photographs," says Kate Jordahl.

All of Jordahl’s photographs in the exhibition are Silver Gelatin Prints, printed in editions of 50. Her work is included in various collections including Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ohio University Library, Rare Book Collection, Athens, Ohio, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, University of Texas, Dallas and Yosemite Museum, Yosemite, California. She is represented by Modernbook Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

Ms. Jordahl has produced three books of photography: The Song Within, Afternoons with Ruth and Walking with Kandinsky. Her fourth book Crystal Day is in production.

Ms. Jordahl is a resident of Hayward, CA. She earned her MFA in photography at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. She is a professor and chair of the photography department at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills in California. She is also the Director of PhotoCentral, a community organization dedicated to photography, located in Hayward, CA.

Brian Alterio will give a members’ talk at 6:15 PM before the exhibit opening on April 10, 2014 at 7 PM.