Griffin Museum of Photography

Jane Fulton Alt The Burn

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"The elements of the burn—the mysterious luminosity, the smoke that both obscures and reveals—suggest a liminal space, a zone of ambiguity where destruction merges with renewal."

Jane Fulton Alt photographs controlled prairie burns."A controlled burn is deliberately set; its violent, destructive force reduces invasive vegetation so that native plants can continue to prosper," says Alt.

Her series of photographs, The Burn, is featured in the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum October 3, 2013 through December 8, 2013. A reception with the artist is October 10, 2013 at 7pm.

In 2007, Fulton Alt began this series after witnessing her first controlled burn. She says, "I was immediately struck by the burn’s visual and expressive potential, as well as the way it evoked themes that are at the core of my photographic work."

She continues, "These images of regenerative destruction have a personal significance—I photographed my first burn at the same time my sister began a course of chemotherapy—yet they constitute a universal metaphor: the moment when life and death are not contradictory but are perceived as a single process to be embraced as a whole."

Jane Fulton Alt is a fine art photographer based in the Chicago area. Numerous awards include Photolucida’s Critical Mass Award and the Humble Arts 31 Women in Art Photography.

She has published Look and Leave: Photographs and Stories of New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward about the aftermath of Katrina in 2009. Alt’s work is in numerous permanent collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, New Orleans Museum of Art, De Paul; Center for Photography, Woodstock.

Prior to the public reception, at 6:15 p.m., Jane Fulton Alt will give a informal gallery talk to members about her series, The Burn, featured in the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Diane Meyer Time Spent that Might Otherwise Be Forgotten

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Diane Meyer is interested in “the failures of photography in preserving experience and personal history.”

Meyer uses embroidery on original photographs to form a pixilated representation of the underlying image. She states, “The embroidery acts as a barrier to the image, allowing the viewer to see only a pixilated version of what’s behind it.”

Meyer photographed in Berlin, in the city center as well as the outskirts on the former path of the Berlin wall. She focused mainly on the locations with no visible traces of the actual wall, interested in the psychological weight of these sites. The embroidery is an important part of her process, “his aspect of the sewing emphasizes the unnatural boundaries created by the wall itself. The sewing, which is soft, provides a literal contrast to the concrete of the wall and a metaphorical contrast to its symbolism.”

Other images are based on family photographs. Meyer says, “I am interested in the disjunction between lived experience and photographic representation. As large areas of the photographs are concealed by the embroidery, small, seemingly trivial details emerge, while the larger picture and context become erased.”

“By having the embroidery take the visual structure of digital pixilation, a further connection is made between the human brain trying to retrieve information and digital storage.”

Also incorporating embroidery, “The tactile, hand-embroidered overlay not only relates to the digital aesthetic, but also hints at the growing trend of photos remaining primarily digital—stored on cell phones and hard drives, but rarely printed out into a tangible object. The images are based on photographs taken at various points in my life and arranged by location.”

Meyer has a Masters of Fine Arts from The University of California and a Bachelor’s Degree focusing in photography from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She has received numerous awards including the CFA Faculty College Fellowship and International Fellowship Award from Silver Eye Center for Photography.

Meyer has exhibited at the Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, University of Notre Dame, IN, Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA and A.I.R Gallery in New York City. Public art installations have been featured in Los Angeles, CA, The Jamaica Center for Art and Learning in Queens, New York and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Residency in the Woolworth Building.

Prior to the public reception, at 6:15 p.m., Jane Fulton Alt will give a non-formal gallery talk about her series, The Burn, featured in the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Meyer’s work is included in the collections of the Newark Public Library and Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, Center for Photography at Woodstock. Photographs are also included in numerous private collections across the United States.

A catalog of  her  work is  available in the  Griffin Bookstore.

Ilaria Ortensi Critics Pic

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Artist Statement
Massive constructions on the suburbs of big cities are a global phenomenon. The contemporary cities are changing their shape so much faster than in the past, that it is very hard for their inhabitants to integrate the new in their life and imaginary.

In my most recent work I focused my attention on the new, unbridled, and largely unnoticed development around Rome in Italy. Attracted by the concept and aesthetics of contemporary typologies of residential housing, I decided to turn some of these architectures into pieces of art, depicting them as something between sculptures and movie sets. In these way I tried to recreate a state where the buildings are still looking for an identity being something between pure “form and volume” and set for possible narrations.

Artist Bio
Ilaria Ortensi completed her B.A. in Cinema Studies at La Sapienza University of Rome in Italy. She then moved to Boston where in 2010 she completed the Post-Baccalaureate Program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She is currentely living in New York City and pursuing her MFA in photography at Columbia University.

Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions such as Pass this on at the Stone Crop Gallery in Maine, Collective 9 at the Dog Eared Gallery in London and Out of Context at West Germany in Berlin. In 2010 her work was part of the PRC Student Exhibition at the Photographic Resource Center and of the Student Annual Exhibition at the Grossman Gallery and Anderson Auditorium of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. In the same year she had her solo show, Rooms, at the Stone Crop Gallery in Maine.

Stone Crop Gallery

In the early 1920s, Grace Merrill bought a small strip of land along a rocky ledge on Shore Road near Perkins Cove. Before a structure was built—even before she had a design for her new studio—she named the future home “Stonecrop” after the hardy flower that “clothes the rocks with starlike yellow bloom.”

Miss Merrill built Stonecrop with salvaged materials from an old barn and other local structures. She reclaimed the barn’s hand-hewn pine timbers to construct a 24-foot high great room, while a damaged 18th century dwelling supplied a stone fireplace and a unique staircase. As construction proceeded, she scoured the surrounding towns for wood, doors, windows—whatever she could find that fit her vision for the home. “From all sides, old materials seemed to pour in,” Merrill wrote. “All summer, my long-suffering car was adorned with bags of cement, old brick, and iron in varied shapes.”

The result of her vision is this unique house with a special history. Stonecrop has been a home to artists for much of the past century. Two previous owners, painter Ruth Seeger and printmaker Beverly Hallam, are still active in the Perkins Cove area. Current owner and photographer Dana Berenson welcomes you to Stonecrop and the Stonecrop Gallery. She’s proud to inherit the creative legacy of Miss Merrill, and invites you to enjoy the artwork.

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Ann Kendellen TREES REAL AND IMAGINED

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While wandering through towns from British Columbia to Louisiana, I find myself captivated by trees. We take this living plant and carve, prune and decorate it. We also take the surface of an exterior wall and imagine the tree upon it.

The tree is a potent symbol. It can suggest beauty and happiness, protection and strength, or balance and healing. Individual trees represent very particular characteristics. The elm is intuition; the aspen determination; the willow magic and dreams.

In an urban habitat trees may survive and even thrive. They can spring from cracks in concrete, reaching up to light and life. In curious combinations, renderings of trees sometimes sit beside the living plant. Other times the painted tree is hidden in grimy alleys and parking lots. The tree’s deep relationship with us, like its living branches or sketched leaves, remains both real and imagined.

Biographical Sketch:

Whether photographing family life or urban settings, my interests lie with people. How we impact, respond to, and change our environment is one facet of a project like Trees Real and Imagined.

I graduated from the University of Colorado with a major in Sociology and minors in Fine Arts and English. Since 1986 I have lived in Portland, Oregon, serving as longtime volunteer on the Blue Sky Gallery board and exhibition committee.

My work has been exhibited, among other places, at Blue Sky Gallery, the Portland Art Museum, Portland International Airport, Froelick Gallery, City Club of Portland, the Internationale Fotoage in Germany, the Center for Fine Art Photography, A Smith Gallery, and the San Diego Art Institute. Images are held in private and public collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Portland Art Museum, the Visual Chronicle Collection of Portland, and the Whatcom Museum of History and Art.

Ann Kendellen
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Bremner Benedict Re-Imagining Eden

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Bremner Benedict has been photographing her daughter moving from youth to maturity in settings that portray her on-going experience with the landscape.

A series of her photographs, Re-imagining Eden, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, September 12 through November 10, 2013. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions “Seminar” and “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.”

A reception is September 25, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Benedict graduated from New York University and earned a BFA at Western Washington University. She also studied at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College and at the Maine Photographic Workshops Residency Program.

"Today, we are involved in a vast cultural shift where our direct experience of nature is being replaced by a virtual one," Benedict says. "How this ultimately will affect our society’s attitudes towards nature and its resources is a question for our modern era."

"The arc of my daughter’s participation – from childlike fascination to wistful fantasy to disengagement – is a metaphor for society’s move away from identifying with nature," she says. "It corresponds to our greater separation from the natural world."

Benedict will informally talk about her work at the gallery opening on September 25, 2013.

Photography Atelier 18

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The Photography Atelier 18 will present an exhibit of student and faculty artwork from September 12th through September 29rd, 2013. The Atelier is a course for intermediate and advanced photographers offered by the Griffin Museum of Photography. You are invited to come view the photographs at the Griffin Gallery, 67 Shore Road, Winchester, Massachusetts 01890.

On Thursday, September 12th, the public is invited to attend the artists’ reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Work by the Photography Atelier 18 members includes: Bob Avakian’s "Between Night and Day," landscapes from Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod taken between dusk and dawn; Nan Campbell Collins’ "Wildwood" images of the mysterious dimensions of veiled as well as luminous light, shape and form experienced within a wildwood; Diane Rubino Davies’ series of fine art child portraits, "In Plain View;" Sue D’Arcy Fuller’s photo essay tells a story of her own city, Medford, Massachusetts, through images of the people who live, work and praise there; Nancy Fulton’s landscapes at the beginning of the wet in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, Africa, "The Rains of Ngorongoro Crater;" Rich Perry’s photographs of the structures of the 1920s and 30s on Route 66 in Oklahoma as they were in March 2013, "Route 66, Oklahoma – The Past in the Present;" Larry Raskin images of the shapes, colors and the play of light reflected in the vehicles we use and see every day, "Reflections on the Move;" Astrid Reischwitz’s "Bedroom Project" which brings intimate spaces into public view; Amy Rindskopf’s images of "Spring in the Greenhouse;" Gail Samuelson’s "Head Shots" – an homage to loved ones which includes vintage hats, WWII shoulder boards, and fake beards; Ellen Slotnick’s "Paradox," interior photographs from abandoned homesteads and farmhouses in North Dakota; Jeanne Wells’ "Winter Gardens,"a series of glass ambrotypes; course assistant Meg Birnbaum’s photographs documenting "The Boston Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" and instructor Karen Davis’s "Touch," portraits of moments of connection.

About the class:
Photography Atelier, in its seventeenth year, is a unique portfolio-making course for emerging to advanced photographers. In addition to guidance and support in the creation of a body of work, the class prepares artists to market, exhibit and present their work to industry professionals.
Each participant in the Atelier presents a final project in the form of a print portfolio, a photographic book or album, a slide show, or a mixed media presentation. In every Atelier students hang a gallery exhibition and produce work for their own pages on the Atelier website. To see the photography of present and past Atelier students and teachers, please visit: www.photographyatelier.org. Instructor Karen Davis, will be happy to discuss the Photography Atelier at the reception on September 12th with anyone interested in joining the class.

Vicky Stromee Intimate Details Catalog

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After her career as a psychotherapist, Stromee found refuge in the natural world and through photographing, turned chaos into satisfying connections.

A series of her photographs, Intimate Details, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Aberjona River Gallery in Winchester, MA, September 12 through November 7.

“When I slow down, watch, and wait, life unfolds its mysteries and things that are familiar to me give way to fields of color, shape, and texture.” says Stromee. “I begin as the observer, watching as ephemeral patterns emerge and dissolve, each moment a unique confluence of light and object. And then, life’s chaos resolves into a deeply satisfying feeling of connection.
She adds, “In this series I’ve created intimate portraits that give form to the magic and mystery that I feel, and challenge the viewer to experience the extraordinary that is in the ordinary.”

Vicky has lived in Tucson since 1976 when she moved there to pursue a Master’s Degree in Counseling at the University of Arizona. When she retired from a long career in counseling, she turned her attention to photography, ultimately finding her niche in photographing natural subjects. Growing up immersed in the arts, watching images emerge in the darkroom and spending afternoons lying under the baby grand piano feeling the resonance of sound waves, Stromee was influenced to make the images she does today.

Vicky’s work hangs in galleries, as well as in private and corporate collections from Vermont to Oregon. Her work has been featured at Waxlander Gallery in Santa Fe and she has gallery representation through PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury VT and art+interiors in New York.

Alicia Savage-Savage Beauty

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Alicia Savage explores time, place and person through this series of self-portraits. Inner landscape is inspired by physical settings of locations such as the Nova Scotia farmhouse of her maternal grandmother, a lake front family homestead, and the odd hotel room encountered on her journeys.

A series of her photographs, Savage Beauty, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging in Belmont, MA, October 4 through December 6, 2013. An opening reception with the artist will be October 4, 2013 from 6:00 to 8:00pm.

“Photography has opened my mind and heart to understand myself and the world beyond what is assumed; to always be inspired by my curiosity and imagination of what is and could be,” says Savage.

Alicia Savage is an emerging self-portrait photographer based in the Boston area. Her imagery captures recorded reflections of herself exploring life and new experiences, revealing both her subconscious and surroundings in what seems to be familiar, yet unknown to the viewer.

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Canson-Infinity

19th Juried Exhibition

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Juror, Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography for the New York Times Magazine says, “The photographers I selected for the 19th juried exhibition of the Griffin Museum have this in common: faith in photography’s ability to tell stories.”

“Their pictures make the reader listen. Some construct fictional narratives to deliver a social critique. Some use classic documentary methods. These photographers aren’t upending the medium,”she says. “They are embracing its documentary powers.”

Ryan served as juror of the 19th Griffin Museum Juried Exhibition, which is on display in the Main Gallery of the museum July 18 through September 1. An opening reception is July 18, 7-8:30 p.m.

Ryan says that “the usual mix of photographic genres was submitted to the competition.”
“Portraiture, landscape, still lives, and interiors are all here,” she explains.

There was a common element that Ryan noticed, too. She says, “Domestic life dominated the submissions and is well represented in this exhibition. There are lots of details of the interiors of homes—refrigerators, TVs, clothing, beds, flowered wallpaper, and windows. Sometimes there are people, presented feelingly.”

Of the Legacy Award recipient Ryan says, “Sarah-Marie Land’s elegant pictures of children in school uniforms are hypnotic thanks to the odd tension between their grown-up poses and warm, innocent surroundings. There is a hint of something sinister—perhaps naughty—behind these simple, precise pictures.”

Julia Cybularz, the Griffin Award recipient, “achieves something unusual,” says Ryan. Of her photographs she says that they are “beautiful pictures of a young girl dueling with a serious medical condition. She doesn’t intend to shock. Yet with exactitude, she portrays the back brace and body cast—the realities of scoliosis. We are surprised, and not surprised, to find that she suffers from the same condition.”

Sarah-Marie Land received the $1,000 Legacy Award. Julia Cybularz received the $500 Griffin Award. Honorable mentions were awarded to Juan Fernandez, Nancy Grace Horton, Mary Kocol, Monika Merva, and Joseph Ow.

The complete list of photographers selected for the exhibition is:
Bob Avakian
Margo Cooper
Francis Crisafio
Julia Cybularz- $500 Griffin Award
Barbara Diener
Steven Duede
Christian Farnsworth
Juan Fernandez- Honorable Mention
Emily Franklin
David Gardner
Eran Gilat
Meg Griffiths
Nancy Grace Horton- Honorable Mention
Daniel Jackson
Becky Jaffe
Phil Jung
Brian Kaplan
Ashley Kauschinger
Stefanie Klavens
John Kobeck
Mary Kocol- Honorable Mention
Alena Kuzub
Molly Lamb
Sarah-Marie Land- $1,000 Legacy Award
Walter Landry
Julie McCarthy
Mary Beth Meehan
Yvette Meltzer
Fabiola Menchelli Tejeda
Monika Merva- Honorable Mention
Charles Mintz
Sarah Nesbitt
Joseph Ow- Honorable Mention
Camilo Ramirez
Suzanne Revy
Michelle Rogers Pritzl
Eleonora Ronconi
Paul Sisson
Elizabeth Swain
Samantha VanDeman
Arthur Zachai
The Griffin Museum of Photography has selected four photographers from the submissions for future exhibitions in 2014:
Paul Adams
Manuel Cosentino
Marjorie Salvaterra
Rafael Soldi

Maureen Richards Scholarship Exhibition

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Matt Granetz of Reading Memorial High School has been chosen to receive the $1,000 Maureen Richards Scholarship from the Griffin Museum of Photography

He will be presented the award at the opening reception of the 19th Juried Exhibition at the museum July 18, 7 p.m.

Grantetz was one of many students who submitted work to the portion of the juried exhibit for area high school seniors, Collected Visions. A selection of the work is on exhibit in the Griffin Gallery July 18 through September 1.

While there was no theme or format for submissions, students were asked to select an image that best represented them, personally and photographically. They also were asked to submit a companion essay answering the question, “what is the significance of using photography and how does it affect our lives?’’

The museum was looking for a well-written essay that provided personal perspectives and opposing points of view, as well as a well-produced photograph that can communicate the message strongly on its own.

The jurors were Greer Muldowney and Andrea Rosenthal.

"We were looking for different kinds of creativity and for students who used not only the process effectively but also were able to combine storytelling, strong visuals," Muldowney and Rosenthal said, adding that also they were looking for when permitting, a strong sense of humor.

They add, “We chose the winner based on how well it expressed the story behind the image, its technical merit, and originality.”

Granetz, winner of the Maureen Richards Scholarship, says of his image, "My photograph shows my connection to nature both physically and metaphorically. As a child I was always enthusiastic about going camping with my dad, canoeing, and fishing. At times like these I feel in touch with my surroundings. The photograph seems to show me floating over the ground. This is because I feel more free and at ease when I am in a natural setting, away from stresses of school, work, and other things."

"I enjoy taking self portrait photos, because there are so many different paths one can take. They can range from abstract ideas to very clear portraits showing texture and emotion. Black and white photos like this can emphasize light and shadow, and their effect on skin. It creates a very smooth shadow. Self portraits demonstrate who you are or who you want to be. This photo shows both sides of me."

Kathleen Volp gives a gallery talk about her exhibit The Melon Series – which is in the Atelier Gallery — for museum members at 6:15 p.m. July 18, prior to the opening reception for all exhibits.

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