Griffin News

Ruben Natal-San Miguel | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on May 5, 2023

The Griffin Museum is excited to bring Ruben Natal-San Miguel to Lafayette City Center to celebrate his magnum opus, Women R Beautiful.

How might you define this work to a young child or to someone unfamiliar with your work? What are its core components?

The Women R Beautiful series was created from the starting point of me being only 4 years old and seen how my grandfather treated my mother . She was nt allowed to look directly at him while speaking to him. That disturbing memory will never leave my mind. The series are pretty self explanatory. It’ s a celebration of women from all walks of life and children are portrayed interacting with their mothers so, it is pretty self explanatory .

When thinking about your work, what drew you to the Griffin Museum?

The idea of this body of work was to travel to different locations and expand it content while at it. I had photographed women from the Massachusetts areas ( East Boston, Revere, Fitchburg, Provincetown , South Boston , Roxbury and Boston ) so wanted to show New England the variety of diversity of women from all walks of life from other areas outside MA. As you know, New England still it is not as diverse as other parts of America.

How has your relationship with your Mother impacted on your personal style and choices in this work?
I had a rare relationship with my mother. I loved her but, was never her favorite. I was just different and most times she did not knew what to do with me and handle me. I obviously loved her but, she never accepted me for who I am today so, was at times contentious. I did listed to her more then any of my siblings and this body of work was created to celebrate her life and her struggles. My mother was part of what I called ‘’ The Gary Winogrand Generation ‘ on high most women were told what to do, were objectified , could not even vote and their place to be was at home in the kitchen and tending to their families. I thought the Gary Winogransd series which were celebrated 52 years ago were limiting when it came to women representation, women were objectified ( the mentality at the time ) and wanted to give women a newer , fresher andplified voice and presence.

Color is a major part of this work and I’m curious as to how, in your eyes, it reflects or amplifies the meaning of this work?
There is color in most marginalized areas of most cities. Bodegas, murals and most areas have a great intensity of color all over in most building surfaces. I do not stage my work! I find my subjects by walking where no one usually goes to , find the subjects and make an environment portrait of it. It is all about the subject being comfortable and not confronted . The result are very intense and direct portraits where get to capture their true essence.

Lastly, What initially drew you to photographing people candidly on the street and out in public?
I am a September 11, 2001 survivor. I was at the North Tower that fateful day working as a financial controller in Wall Street. . After many months of complete human detachment, moved to Harlem and decided to start photographing based on the very rich street culture that witnessed every day on my way home . It helped me a lot to make and establish connections with total strangers . We could tell each other things that we cannot tell even our closest friends. We developed a quick bond based on humanity. I am a self taught photographer . There is no school in the world that can teach you what I do. It comes from something deeper than soul.

ABOUT RUBEN NATAL-SAN MIGUEL

RUBEN NATAL-SAN MIGUEL is an architect, fine art photographer, curator, creative director and critic. His stature in the photo world has earned him awards, features in major media, countless exhibitions and collaborations with photo icons such as Magnum Photographer Susan Meiselas. Gallery shows include: Asya Geisberg, SoHo Photo, Rush Arts, Finch & Ada, Kris Graves Projects, Fuchs Projects, WhiteBox Gallery, Station Independent Projects Gallery, LMAK Gallery, Postmasters Gallery Rome & NYC and others. His work has been featured in numerous institutions: The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Griffin Museum of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, African American Museum of Philadelphia, The Makeshift Museum in Los Angeles, University of Washington, El Museo del Barrio and Phillips Auction House and Aperture Foundation.

International art fair representation includes: Outsider Art Fair, SCOPE, PULSE, Art Chicago, Zona Maco, Mexico, Lima Photo, Peru and Photo LA. and Filter Photo Festival in Chicago Ill. His photography has been published in a long list of publications, highlights: New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Time OUT, Aperture, Daily News, OUT, American Photo, ARTFORUM, VICE, Musee, ARTnet and The New Yorker, PBS and NPR. In 2016, Ruben’s Marcy’s Playground was selected for both the Billboard Collective and website for Apple. His photographs are in the permanent collections of El Museo Del Barrio in NYC, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY, The Contemporary Collection of the Mint Museum Charlotte, North Carolina, The Bronx Museum for the Arts, School of Visual Arts, NYC, The Fitchburg Museum of Art, Massachusetts, The North Carolina Museum of Art at Raleigh, NC., The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, The Studio Museum of Harlem and The Museum of The City of NY, The Provincetown Art Museum, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Museum Center at Vassar College and The Museum of Fine Arts , Boston, MA.

JP Terlizzi | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on April 14, 2023

JP Terlizzi is a part of our show, Ties That Bind, on show now at the Griffin until April 16th.

Ties that Bind stitches together three unique visions looking at the idea of family and the rewriting of history, myth and personal narratives. These artists work with images and objects, including various materials, with the addition of stitching on found images, personal family photos. Each artist finds ways to change the script, rewrite what has been lost and gain clarity of vision.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

I come from a graphic design and advertising background. I work full-time as the Executive Creative Director for a retail design agency in NYC and have been creating designs in the retail sector for close to 40 years. I’m responsible for helping brands and retailers articulate their products and services, and how that visually gets communicated to consumers at retail. I came to photography much later in life, it was another outlet to express myself creatively without having to answer to clients. It allows me the freedom to explore subjects that interest me and create things on my own terms and timelines.

Tell a little about your work in the new exhibition, “Ties That Bind.”

I come from a very large and loving extended Italian family. I’ve been thinking a lot about family history and the legacies that are left behind as I age, and how much of my own family history has been lost due to family members that I have passed. Their memories and stories of family are now also gone. I wanted to create a series around objects. Objects that focus on the relationship between the family archive and personal memory that I someday could pass down to the younger generations as my legacy.

What led to your decision to use mixed media photography as a means to explore connections between past and present?

I’ve been curious and wanted to explore assemblages for a while. It seemed like a natural progression in my practice. I took a workshop in Oct. of 2021 with Dawn Surratt and really embraced the assemblage world. It was a way for me to use the photograph as a starting point and dive much deeper with the use of objects to tell more of a personal story with layers and create these one-of-a-kind pieces around each family member.

Finally, What is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I’ve been visually obsessing with patterns for the past several months, specifically wallpapers. I am currently in the process of making some new work to add to the series The Good Dishes. The new work is much more colorful and elaborate with over-the-top patterns. I have been obsessing how I can make it all look visually chaotic but balance the beauty and elegance that The Good Dishes are known for.

ABOUT JP TERLIZZI

JP Terlizzi is a New York City photographer whose contemporary practice explores themes of memory, relationship, and identity. His images are rooted in the personal and heavily influenced around the notion of home, legacy, and family. He is curious how the past relates and intersects with the present and how the present enlivens the past, shaping one’s identity.

Born and raised in the farmlands of Central New Jersey, JP earned a BFA in Communication Design at Kutztown University of PA with a background in graphic design and advertising. He has studied photography at both the International Center of Photography in New York and Maine Media College in Rockport, ME.

JP’s work has been exhibited widely in galleries including shows at The Center for Fine Art Photography, Vicki Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver, The Grin Museum, Tilt Gallery, Panopticon Gallery, Candela Gallery, The Los Angeles Center of Photography, University Gallery at Cal Poly, and The Berlin Foto Biennale, Berlin, Germany, among others.

His solo exhibits include shows at Foto Relevance Gallery (August, 2020) The Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Cameraworks Gallery in Portland, OR and Soho Photo Gallery in Manhattan.

Astrid Reischwitz | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on April 14, 2023

Astrid Reischwitz is a part of our show, Ties That Bind, on show now at the Griffin until April 16th.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Although working in the field of natural science, art always played an important role in my life and I see photography as a way to explore life further and pave a path to the future.

Tell a little about your work in the new exhibition, “Ties That Bind.”

Images in this exhibition are from my series Stories from the Kitchen Table and Spin Club Tapestry, they are based on cultural memories and the evolution of village life in Northern Germany. I see my work as visual storytelling where memories and emotions intertwine into new stories. The work is also a reflection on belonging. I have lived for many years abroad and the photographic work is important to create a new home, a new shelter of emotions.

What led to your decision to implement family keepsakes into your work as a means of exploring themes like memory and place?

Keepsakes like old photos and embroidered fabric can tell us more about the past, about the people who touched these memorabilia. Traditional stories have a profound impact on my current photographic work. In my village in Germany, women met regularly in “Spin Clubs” to spin wool, embroider, and stitch fabrics for their homes. My composite images are based on these stories and cultural characteristics and I transform this tradition of storytelling into a visual journey. With my own embroidered elements, I explore the theme of memory further.

What led to your decision to implement family keepsakes into your work as a means of exploring themes like memory and place?

Finally, what is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I love street art/graffiti and became interested in the connection between street art and early rap music after visiting the exhibition “Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Absolutely obsessed with Rapture by Blondie.

ABOUT ASTRID REISCHWITZ

Astrid Reischwitz is a lens-based artist whose work explores storytelling from a personal perspective. Using keepsakes from family life, old photographs, and storytelling strategies, she builds a visual world of memory, identity, place, and home. Her current focus is the exploration of personal and collective memory influenced by her upbringing in Germany.

Reischwitz has exhibited at national and international museums and galleries including Newport Art Museum, Griffin Museum of Photography, Danforth Art Museum, Photographic Resource Center, The Center for Fine Art Photography (CO), Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Center for Photographic Art (CA), FotoNostrum, Dina Mitrani Gallery and Gallery Kayafas.

She has received multiple awards, including the 2020 Griffin Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Multimedia Award at the 2020 San Francisco Bay International Photo Awards. Her series “Spin Club Tapestry” was selected as a Juror’s Pick at the 2021 LensCulture Art Photography Awards and is the Series Winner at the 2021 Siena International Photo Awards. She was a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photographer in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2016; and is a Mass Cultural Council 2021 Artist Fellowship Finalist in Photography.

Her work was featured in Fraction Magazine, Lenscratch, LensCulture, What Will You Rembember?, Wired Japan, Il Post Italy, P3 Portugal, Aint-Bad Magazine, The Boston Globe, NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam, as well as other media outlets.

Marsha Guggenheim | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on April 7, 2023

Marsha Guggenheim’s series is on show now at the Griffin Museum. Without a Map reimagines this time that’s deeply rooted in my memories. Visiting my childhood home, synagogue and family plot provided an entry into this personal retelling. Working with family photos, creating new images from my past and turning the camera on myself, I found the means to evoke, reinterpret and address unanswered questions born from early imprints that were buried long ago.

Tell us a little about your background

This is a picture I made of me as a young girl and as a woman today. A lot has happened over these years. I didn’t come to photography until late in life after a career in the nonprofit sector where I created programs supporting the underserved community.

How has your approach to photography evolved since beginning the project?

This project is technically a significant departure from my previous work. I started with color but found sepia was a much more effective way to work with my old photos and to create a sense of time with my new ones. I learned techniques for manipulating images with available light and in-camera affects and only used tools like Photoshop for basic cropping and print production.

Tell a little about your exhibition, “Without a Map”, and how it was conceived

For years I have loved making pictures of people and learning their stories. About five years ago, I realized that there was one story I hadn’t addressed and that was my own. To make this series, I looked at old family photos, made self portraits, and created pictures from conversations I had with people who had known my mother. I also visited my childhood home, synagogue and family plot to gain a better understanding of my early childhood.

Has there been a piece of contemporary art that has particularly engaged or moved you?

I’m not sure Robert Frank’s work would still be considered contemporary, but he was my teacher, unbeknownst to him. I love his work and how he makes pictures of daily life, whether it’s a trolly car or a funeral, you get a strong sense of the people involved and their environment.

ABOUT MARSHA GUGGENHEIM

Marsha Guggenheim is a San Francisco based fine art photographer. Her passion is storytelling and using images to re-imagine the past and inspire the present. Marsha spent years photographing and documenting the lives of formerly homeless mothers. This work resulted in the monograph, Facing Forward, highlighting thirty-five women through portraits combined with stories of their life experiences. Over the past five years, Marsha has been working on her series, Without a Map. The project draws on recreating images from memories and ephemera to reconstruct her personal history. Without a Map looks at the life-long impact of loss on a child and how both trauma and joy affect the human soul.

Represented by Corden Potts Gallery, Marsha is a 2021 and 2022 Critical Mass finalist. Her work has been shown in over fifty exhibitions and is included in numerous private collections. Feature articles and interviews range from Black & White Magazine, All About Photo Magazine, Fraction Magazine, F-Stop Photography Magazine and Lenscratch. In 2023, Marsha will be featured in a solo show at The Griffin Museum of Photography and will also participate in a six-artist group exhibition at the Harvey Milk Photography Center in San Francisco.

Carolle Benitah | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on March 31, 2023

Carolle Benitah is our featured artist apart of our show, Ties That Bind, on show now at the Griffin.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

I came from fashion background. And I started to explore the medium of photography in early 2000. (more included in artist statement)

Tell a little about your work in the new exhibition, “Ties That Bind.”

The works exhibited at the Griffin Museum come from family photographic archives. I use mediums such as embroidery, drawing or writing to give another meaning to these photographs. It’s a way to put these photographs back in motion.

What led to your decision to implement handmade accents like embroidery into your work?

“Photos Souvenirs” is a work that I undertook between 2009 and 2014 on my personal archives. Snapshots are related to memory and loss and often attest to family happiness. I created an imaginary album as a crossing of appearances where I deconstruct the myth of the ideal family to let emerge a more nuanced image. And to do this, I use the deceptively decorative function of embroidery to give these images a different meaning they had in family mythology, and to do something liberating. My needle works, which are reminiscent of conflict, drama and pain, summon the dark matter of family history, which is precisely absent from these photographs. This slow and precise work is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of oneself and of passing time.

Embroidery is also the work of women.

It is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of the self.

Finally, What is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I discovered 4 years ago at Sydney Biennale the work of Miriam Cahn. And I just saw her exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. I totally fell in love with her work, bought her books, read everything about her, and her practice. The power of her work overwhelmed me.

Since 4 mouths, I mostly listen to podcasts instead of music. I listen to Lex Fridman podcasts which are smart, intense and very instructive. I discover worlds far from the milieu of photography and open my perspectives on life. I listen philosophy podcasts too.

ABOUT CAROLLE BENITAH

French Moroccan photographer Carolle Bénitah, who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, explores memory, family and the passage of time. Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Bénitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother.

The work of Carolle Bénitah has been published in magazines such as Leica World, Shots Magazine, Photos Nouvelles, Spot, Center for Photography Houston, Foto Noviny, and Lens Culture, among others. Carolle Bénitah was born in Casablanca (Morocco) and graduated from the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (Paris). Her series Photos-Souvenirs was also selected to exhibit in FotoFest’s 2014 Discoveries of the Meeting Place showcase of past Biennial portfolio reviews. We thank Corinne Tapia and Sous Les Etoiles Gallery for working with the museum to showcase Carolle’s works.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I started taking photographs in the early 2000s after very strong personal challenges. The fragile dimension of life came upon me and photography worked as an existential crutch. Faced with a reality that is difficult to grasp – such as illness in the series “Self-Portrait with the Red Curtain” (2002), or in the series “A bed of roses” (2001-2008), photography has acted as a new body of meaning. From the beginning, I placed my practice in the field of intimacy; the family and the passing of time were the objects of my research. Today, my work leads to more open topics such as filial ties, desire, loss, mourning and the confinement of women and touching the universal.

I cultivate a protean approach to creation by developing installations around the series “Photos souvenirs” and “Fantômes”. I create books in which I embroider memories, paper mats that evoke the obsession, cushions that tell the stories of Tom Little Thumb … and through which I question the identity, the construction of oneself. I use materials that are in the domestic world (placemats, handkerchief with embroidered monogram, tea towel, sheet …) and often embroiders on phrases from popular songs, dreams of young romantic girls to denounce the clichés of sentimentality blue flower.

Through the trivial objects that I create and embroider, I overthrow the hierarchy of the arts. In 2013, “What cannot be said” and “What cannot be seen” are series from my ID photographs. The philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote: “What cannot be said should certainely not remain silence but written”. Here, writing and drawing are a form of resistance to silence. I speak of women’s silence about their desires and the difficulty of accepting their body as a desiring object.

“Jamais je ne t’oublierai” (I will never forget you) (2017) is a series of anonymous photographs that I intervene by masking some elements with gold leaf. It is a negative album of “Photos Souvenirs”. I point out the shortcomings of photography that says “I’ll never forget you” as the heady chorus of a nursery rhyme. I do this work because no one is concerned by these photographs anymore. “Ideal Standard” (2017) questions the ritual of Marriage in my culture of origin and denounces the desire to submit to the norm and to follow a ready-made model in order to reach a socially acceptable happiness or to his social environment.

Art has a cathartic function for me. It is a way of overcoming hardships, going beyond earthquakes and standing up. The artist louise Bourgeois says: “Every day, you have to get rid of your past. If we can not, then we become an artist. There are two ways to get rid of one’s past: either one takes all the traces and one throws in the trash and that does not exist any more. Either we take these traces and we transform them. The very act of transforming these traces modifies my vision of the world.

All images courtesy of Sous Les Etoiles Gallery.

Matt Siber | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on March 18, 2023

Matt Siber‘s Collective Consciousness looks at the way we imbue preconceived notions of what the object holds, and how we re-envision that object in a new context. His work was on view as part of My Favorite Things at Lafayette City Center, downtown Boston.

chairs on a a table with bird — © Matt Siber

What in your background do you believe had the biggest impact on your personal style and choices

I grew up in a scientific family that had a strong appreciation for art. My father and grandfather were both serious amateur photographers and they encouraged me as a kid to learn how to use a camera. Photography was my entry point into the art world and I have them to thank for that.

My first several years as a professional photographer were spent in the commercial field. My experiences with commercial photography gave me an inside look into the persuasive and manipulative methods used by PR firms to sell a brand image. When I entered my MFA program I was inclined to use that freedom of expression to examine and criticize the world I had come from in order to better understand it. My time as a commercial photographer is directly related to my main artistic practice as an examination and criticism of advanced capitalism.

My expansion into 3D media and other forms of visual expression were significantly influenced by my teaching position at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Our Photography Department takes a very broad approach to photographic practice where we tend to de-emphasize the singular photograph as art object in place of a more holistic approach that includes a range of media and presentation methods. This is when my use of sculptural and installation approaches became integral to my work.

If you were to describe your exhibit to someone what might you say?

The Collective Consciousness project was my way of adapting the approaches from my main practice to a subject I hadn’t addressed before. I was given this residency in the Chicago Public School system and was given free rein to make work that was distinctly mine. I am interested in complex systems, how they work, and the physical infrastructure that keeps them functioning. This led me to examine the objects within the elementary school without which the school couldn’t function. I arrange them in unexpected and often precarious ways in order to emphasize their presence and ask the viewer for their consideration. Much of the project was done in an empty school during the pandemic, adding another layer of context for the otherwise “idle” objects.

Could you explain your relationship to space in your photography? Additionally how does form inform your work?

When I create 3D work for exhibition I think of the pieces as having dimension and being viewed from all angles and perspectives. Much of my work ends up as a photograph, even if the subject is essentially sculptural. In these cases the camera’s flattening of space is used to my advantage as a way of fixing a gaze and locking in formal relationships within the space. In Collective Consciousness the objects needed to be returned right away, so a photograph was the only way to present the work to an audience. The assemblages were created for the camera with a single point perspective in mind. The form’s relation to the space is determined by the compression of space and the rectangular framing of a photograph. Figure and ground become fixed.

What originally brought you to the Griffin?

I ended up meeting with Crista at the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago. I was looking for venues outside of Chicago to exhibit the Collective Consciousness project so I looked to the portfolio reviews at Filter to get the prints in front of some curators. I’ve known of The Griffin for a long time as a professional in the field and a former Massachusetts kid.

ABOUT MATT SIBER

Matt Siber is a visual artist who uses photography, digital imaging, sculpture, and installation to examine large societal systems. He is Associate Professor, Adjunct in the Photography Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Collaborations | Caleb Cole & Jesseca Ferguson

Posted on March 13, 2023

Collaborations, our special print program features creative photographic artists partnering to imagine and produce a one of a kind print to support the Griffin Museum of Photography. We started the program last year, bringing artists together, combining their talents and creativity, to create unique prints, with the funds raised from your purchase benefitting the museum, its education, programs and exhibitions.

We are honored to see the next available print in the program from Boston based artists Caleb Cole and Jesseca Ferguson.

man on the moon — Contemplating the Moon, 2023
Caleb Cole and Jesseca Ferguson

Contemplating the Moon, 2023

Caleb Cole and Jesseca Ferguson

Digital collage from found photograph and handmade cyanotype artist book

Archival Pigment Print

7.2×9 inch image on 8.5×11 inch paper

edition of 20 with 2 AP’s $250

Purchase the print here, or contact the museum to reserve your edition.

Caleb Cole is a Midwest-born, Boston-based artist whose work addresses the opportunities and difficulties of queer belonging, as well as aims to be a link in the creation of that tradition, no matter how fragile or ephemeral or impossible its connections. They were an inaugural resident at Surf Point Residency and have received an Artadia Finalist Award, Hearst 8×10 Biennial Award, 3 Magenta Flash Forward Foundation Fellowships, and 2 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 awards, among other distinctions. Caleb exhibits regularly at a variety of national venues and has held solo shows in Boston, New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, among others. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Newport Art Museum, Davis Art Museum, Brown University Art Museum, and Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. Caleb is represented by Gallery Kayafas, Boston.

Jesseca Ferguson works at the intersection of 19th century handmade photographic processes, collage, and artist books. Her work is held in over twenty public collections in the US and abroad. US collections include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA; Columbia University Libraries, Rare Books and Manuscripts, New York, NY; and New Mexico History Museum, Pinhole Resource Collection, Santa Fe, NM. International collections include Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, France; Museum of the History of Photography, Kraków, Poland; and The Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, England. Her artistic and curatorial projects have been supported by Art Matters, Inc., the Trust for Mutual Understanding (twice), and MacDowell, among others. Her images and photo-objects have been published in numerous books, catalogues, and articles on handmade photography in the US and abroad.
Jesseca lives and works in a co-operative live-work artist building located in the Fort Point area of Boston, MA. She holds undergraduate degrees from Harvard University and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She received her MFA from Tufts University (in conjunction with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). An artist who has had a career as an educator, she has taught courses/workshops and been a visiting artist at Boston-area art schools including Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Art Institute of Boston, Lesley University, Clark University, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA@Tufts).

Stephanie Shih | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on March 7, 2023

Stephanie Shih’s Asian American Still Life looks at the way we imbue preconceived notions of what the object holds, and how we re-envision that object in a new context. Her work is on view as part of My Favorite Things at Lafayette City Center, downtown Boston.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

I am a visual still life artist, working in the mediums of photo and motion. I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently live and work in Los Angeles, CA.

Tell a little about your exhibition, “Asian American Still Life.”

Asian American Still Life is an on-going series that examines the cultural richness of what’s usually considered the very Eurocentric (and painting-based) art tradition of still life. In the series, I’m pulling from my own cultural background as a Taiwanese-Chinese American as well as collaborating with other creators in the Asian diaspora to make our presences known in this venerated art tradition… and having a bit of subversive fun along the way (hopefully).

What do you find special about still life photography? What led to your decision to use it as a means to explore Asian American identity with this project?

I’ve always been more drawn to food and things and their internal lives than I have been to people! I like to “hear” the stories and histories that objects can tell. And so often in the history of the Eurocentric still life tradition, objects from other cultures get thrown in without context. I felt like it was really time to try to take back some of that narrative space and, in doing so, push the tradition forward.

What is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I came across ceramicist Fujikasa Satoko’s work recently and am mind-boggled and obsessed. She makes clay come so alive that I’m in disbelief that it’s actually clay. That’s the kind of aliveness I always seek to bring to my still life arrangements!

ABOUT STEPHANIE SHIH

Stephanie Shih is a visual still life artist, known for her painterly use of shadow applied to playful perspectives on food. Shih started making photographs with her dad’s half-frame camera on childhood road trips, but only took up photography seriously later in life while in graduate school. At the time, she moonlighted as a caterer, and translating the experience of food to the visual image has been a driving through line of her work ever since.

As a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American, Shih explores themes of cultural dynamics—belonging,alienation, appropriation, celebration—through her still life photographs. Shih’s photography has been featured in print outlets including Elle Girl Korea, 7×7, and Gastronomica, and online on Gourmet Live, Saveur, Fine Cooking, and Buzzfeed.

Shih is from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Los Angeles. When not in the studio or kitchen creating, she is a professor at University of Southern California.

Bonnie Newman | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on February 18, 2023

Bonnie Newman’s “First Light” still hangs at WinCam, so be sure to see it before it leaves in March! To learn more about her process we asked her questions for Griffin State of Mind!

Tell us a little about your background.

Thirteen years ago, I retired from a career in higher education and nonprofit management. I love travel and have always taken snapshots that captured the beauty and special aspects of the places I visited. And I have always found solace and spirituality in nature. Eight years ago, I upgraded my camera, started taking photography courses, and connected with a community of photographers, all of which helped me to strengthen my skills and have fun experimenting with my photography.

Tell a little about your recent exhibition, “First Light,” and how it was conceived.

I have a small cottage with windows on a pond on Cape Cod. Spending time there provided the opportunity to deeply notice my everchanging environment. I was particularly captivated by the morning light on the pond. I started taking photos from my window, my dock, and my kayak. In time, I felt I was simply recording the view, and not capturing the spirit of the area. I discovered the feature on my DSLR camera that allowed me to combine two images in-camera, one over the other, which made it possible to create more imaginative photos. I have since taken hundreds of multiple-exposure images that celebrate the early morning light on the pond.

How has your approach to photography evolved since beginning the project?

My work on this project has pushed me to experiment even more, utilizing intentional camera movement, (ICM) along with multiple exposures, to create “reinvisioned” landscapes, which capture the emotion I feel in the beauty and serenity of nature.

Has there been a Griffin Museum exhibition that has particularly engaged or moved you?

I always enjoy the exhibitions–I love seeing the many ways that photographers use the medium of photography to share their vision and what is important to them, and I gravitate to those who use experimental/out of the box techniques, and new ways of seeing nature and landscape.

What is a book, song or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I’ve had the opportunity to photograph a two-hundred-year-old historic barn that is about to be dismantled and rebuilt. I loved documenting the many discarded, deteriorating items left there for years, and then once the items were cleared out, to notice the elements of the structure of the barn. I particularly like the shapes, textures and shadows, the centuries-old construction techniques, the deteriorating wood, the old birds nests, and even the invasion of ivy through the dusty broken windows.

ABOUT BONNIE NEWMAN

Bonnie Newman is a photographer, outdoor enthusiast and avid traveler. With her camera, she experiences and captures the splendor of nature, compelling moments, and new environments.

Newman finds inspiration in nature, whether an expansive landscape or a detail that catches her eye. She sees abstraction everywhere and is attracted to shapes, transparency, distortion and fragmentation. Her recent landscape work utilizes the techniques of transparency and reflection, double exposure, and intentional camera movement to reveal her singular vision of a scene. The resulting images vacillate between serene and edgy, offering a flight from reality combined with a hint of mystery.

Newman’s photographs have been exhibited in a solo show at the Cary Public Library in Lexington MA. She has also exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography and juried in to group exhibitions at the Cambridge Art Association, Arlington Center for the Arts, Plymouth Center for the Arts, and Gallery Twist in Lexington.

She photographs for the Brewster Conservation Trust and the Town of Lexington Conservation Department, and her photos are on display at Brewster (MA) Town Hall, and the Lexington (MA) Visitor’s Center and in private collections.

Newman has taken photography courses with Emily Belz at the Arlington Center for the Arts, Griffin Museum of Photography, and the DeCordova Museum. (2015-2020). She participated in the Atelier 33 at the Griffin, has taken online workshops with Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery, and workshops on Cape Cod with Steven Koppel and Julia Cumes .

Newman lives in Lexington and Brewster MA.

She can be found at http://bonnienewmanphotography.com/

WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

Judith Black | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on February 15, 2023

With Family Album coming to a close at the end of February, we wanted to interview Judith Black for Griffin State of Mind.

Tell us a little about your background.
I have always loved making pictures… drawing cartoon characters, painting, taking some photos with my Brownie camera from an early age. Fast forward, in 1979 I started a masters degree program at the Creative Photography Lab at MIT founded by Minor White. I was 34 years old, recently divorced with four small children. Finding role models became an important part of my research. I was looking to see how women who were both photographers and mothers managed to balance nurturing their family and their need to have a career.

Family Group *(Mother’s day)* May 12, 1985

What compelled you to document your family originally?
Realizing I would not be able to spend much time away from work and home, I used the camera to record the physical and emotional changes we have all made over the years. Families are complicated…. something I hope my photos demonstrate. The photographs are a way for me to remember both the pleasures and pains of being part of and raising a family.

How has your approach to photography evolved since beginning the project?
It has been pretty consistent, actually, for the work I choose to exhibit which has always been black and white. At first, I used several kinds of film cameras. I was given the Polaroid Type 55 film, I fell in love with it. It that gave me a 4×5 negative and little print in 60 seconds. Once Polaroid and the Type 55 were gone, it was time to do something a bit different. I found that as digital cameras got better and better, I started to make more use of color. Who knows what I will do with that archive.

Laura and Self *(Before Arthur’s memorial service),* December 30, 1994

Tell a little about your recent exhibition, “Family Album”, and how it was conceived.
Barbara Hitchcock, formerly Director of the Polaroid International Collection, is the curator of the exhibit which pairs my work with Bjorn Sterri’s photographs of his family and his self. Barbara brought a non-chronological order to the photographs, choosing to look for visual ideas that brought small groups of photos together to spark a dialogue. It was wonderful to work with her choices!

Has there been a Griffin Museum exhibition that has particularly engaged or moved you?
I really enjoyed seeing the Lou Jones exhibit a couple of years ago. He is wonderful supporter of photography, a prolific photographer with so many bodies of work and a generous mentor.

ABOUT JUDITH BLACK

Judith Black received her Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981 and was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986. She taught in the Art Department at Wellesley College for 25 years. Black’s work has been collected and exhibited in museums, from the Museum of Modern Art, New York to museums, institutions and galleries across the globe.

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