Griffin Museum of Photography

Jill Enfield The New Americans

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As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, who escaped Germany in 1939 to open camera stores in Florida, Jill Enfield has always been passionate about the immigrant experience.

A series of her photographs, The New Americans, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, May 23 through July 23. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions “These Shining Lives” and “The Marvelous Wonderettes.”

A reception is June 20, 6-7:30 p.m.

A fine art and commercial photographer, Enfield spent 20 years focusing on still lives and landscapes. Recently, she has turned her attention to portraits.

“As a protest against the profiling and prejudice that has emerged over the last decade, I have been photographing immigrants with the notion that all people who relocate to the United States enrich our hosting culture with their own foreign experience,” Enfield says.

“Just as the immigrants of yesteryear were ignored or treated with suspicion, so, too, are the new Americans,” she says. “We make the same mistakes based on ignorance and fail to perceive the potential of adventurous risk-takers who are more likely than most to transcend the odds and achieve something great. With these strange newcomers arrive new delicacies, art, fashion, architecture, and thought. Every culture evolves because new ideas come in from cultures far away.”

Enfield is working with Mary Panzer, an internationally recognized scholar of photography and its history, on a series about new Americans. Panzer interviews the subjects of Enfield’s portraits, which will be shown at Ellis Island in NY in the fall of 2013.

Enfield has taught hand coloring and non-silver techniques at schools in New York City and throughout the US and Europe. Her work is in collections and has appeared in many magazines around the world.

One of her images was among 42 selected from thousands through the Here Is New York Archive to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

Under Glass Candace Gaudiani, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Ryan Zoghlin

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Note: From 7-23 to Sept1st The  Glass Vitrine Gallery is only sowing  the  work of  Heidi Kirkpatrick.

Under Glass, is an exhibition in the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Atelier Gallery glass vitrine, showcasing the work of Candace Gaudiani, Heidi Kirkpatrick, and Ryan Zoghlin. The exhibit will take place June 13 – July 10, 2013. The opening reception is June 13, 2013, at 7 PM with a members gallery talk by John Tunney at 6:15 PM

San Francisco area photographer Candace Gaudiani took photographs out train windows. “Traveling is dreaming,” says Gaudiani, “at least in a train when the monotonous sound of the rolling wheels is gradually carrying the traveler away into a kind of walking coma, and he perceives the landscape flying by as only apparitional: more patches of color than landscapes, more shapes and surfaces than architecture.”

A boxed set of Forty Eight States will be on view at the Griffin and is courtesy of Panopticon Gallery in Boston.

An established fine art photographer and educator based in Portland, Oregon, Heidi Kirkpatrick will exhibit from her body of work Specimens, courtesy of Panopticon Gallery in Boston. Her work explores the female figure, family narratives and contemporary issues of being a woman. Kirkpatrick applies film positives onto objects such as vintage children’s blocks, books, mahjong tiles and tins creating unique photo objects. “My work’” says Kirkpatrick, “is reminiscent of nineteenth century cased images…..where the hinged tins open and close to reveal or conceal the secrets they hold.”

Chicago photographer Ryan Zoghlin will showcase work at the Griffin from his series Aerotones too and Kiddieland. Zoghlin says that the images in Aerotones too are a continuation of his Airshow and Aerotones series. Zoglin says that the work is intended to be carried in ones pocket close to oneself for inspiration, to alleviate stressful parts of the day and to create sentimental value as opposed to monetary value. His Kiddieland images are small symbols of his memories from years of visiting Kiddieland in Melrose Park Illinois

John Lucas Soviet Restaurant Polaroids

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John Lucas began taking photographs as a young student and continued through his doctoral studies, taking street images of life around him in England and while traveling in Europe, Turkey, and Morocco.

But during the 1970s he gave up serious photography, finding it incompatible with the demands of his scientific career in physics.
Then, on a journey to Russia in 1981, he took a series of Polaroid photographs in a coffeehouse.

" While this project was pursued with characteristic intensity, it took until 2007 to bring it to life through a combination of a strong sense of ‘unfinished business,’ advances in digital processing, and most precious of all, time," Lucas says.

A series of his photographs, Soviet Restaurant Polaroids, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA.

The project began when Lucas was in the Russian coffeehouse and used his Polaroid to take a picture of the cake he had been served.

" Within seconds of the camera’s flash I was mobbed with desperate requests for portraits by a clientele steeped in the privations of a Soviet winter," Lucas says. " The demand was clearly insatiable, even with my generous supply of film."

" At this point, I felt I had two choices; to abandon the cake and run, or to impose order on the situation. Without a word of Estonian or Russian, the unique character of Polaroid photography served as my language for convincing an apprehensive waitress to pose for a photograph. This was perceived as our arrangement and the commotion evaporated."

Decades later, Lucas explains, " I set about changing the small images of women and the food they provided into 16-by-20- inch giclee prints, using scale to transform the obsolescent icon of the Polaroid image into a defiant gesture. Rather than restore the original colors I sought dramatic effect through a richer palette."

The Griffin satellite gallery, which had been at 4 Clarendon St. in Boston’s South End, has moved back to its renovated and expanded space in Belmont.
The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Elin Hoyland :The Brothers

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When Norwegian photographer Elin Hoyland heard about two reclusive, elderly brothers living together in rural Norway she knew she wanted to collaborate with them on a project about their lives.

A series of her photographs, The Brothers, is featured in the Atelier Gallery at the Griffin Museum April 9 through June 2. An opening reception is April 11, 7-8:30 p.m.

Harald, then 75, and Mathias Ramen, 80, had always shared a house on the small farm where they were born. Neither married.

In addition to running their own farm, they had worked as loggers and carpenters on other local farms.

Harald spent one night in a hotel in Lillehammer, which he called the worst night of his life. Mathias tried working in Oslo for two months, but didn’t like it.

The brothers’ days on the farm provided a predictable and comforting routine. They cut, carried, and burned wood to heat their house. They fed wild birds in some 20 birdhouses. They listened to the radio and read the newspaper.

Harald died from as asthma attack while shoveling snow in frigid temperatures. Mathias continued to live in the house until moving to a home for the elderly.

Hoyland then went back and photographed the empty house. Mathias died in 2007.

"The brothers’ way of life has now almost entirely disappeared in modern Norway," she says.

A book of Hoyland’s work, The Brothers, was published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in the United Kingdom.

Hoyland has freelanced as a photographer for several major newspapers and her work has been exhibited in the UK, Scandinavia, France, and China.

A gallery talk for museum members by Stephan Sagmiller – whose exhibit The Clouds: Experiments in Perception is featured in the Griffin Gallery – is at 6:15 p.m. April 11, prior to the opening reception for all exhibits.

A book The Brothers by Elin Hoyland, published by www.dewilewispublishing.com with an essay by Gerry Badger will be distributed to each attendee to the exhibition reception courtesy of Statoil.

Stephan Sagmiller – The Clouds: Experiments in Perception

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In a project that questions the definition of nature, Stephan Sagmiller juxtaposes photographs of painted skies from dioramas at the Natural History Museum with actual skies photographed throughout the United States.

A series of his images, Clouds: Experiments in Perception, is featured in the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum April 9 through June 2. An opening reception with the artist is April 11, 7-8:30 p.m.

“It is often the case that individuals define nature vis-à-vis photographs, paintings, and simulations over their own independent observation,” Sagmiller says.

He says his juxtaposition of painted and actual skies “unsettles the landscape, opening up space for the viewer to reflect.”

“When I put together the skies in the museum and the skies out in the world, they collapsed into one another,” Sagmiller explains. “I saw no reason to continue to delineate between reality and artifice as I had in my previous bodies of work.

“All the clouds I experienced – whether natural phenomena or painted artifice – became equally important. My images were simply fragments of other fragments. No fragment was more authoritative than any other fragment: together they formed a compelling personal collection.”

Sagmiller adds, “It is not possible to entirely untangle the concept of nature from landscape photography, the history of painting, or the romantic ideals often embedded in these forms of representation. However, even a small rupture opens up the possibility for reflection and questioning: What is nature? What do we know about nature? How do we know what we know?”

Sagmiller is a photographer and educator based in New York City. He has a master of fine arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design.

He gives a gallery talk for museum members at 6:15 p.m. April 11, prior to the opening reception for all exhibits.

For this show, the Griffin created an exhibition catalog. It is available in the museum’s online gift shop. It is one of many upcoming Griffin Museum of Photography publications. All books are being designed by Meg Birnbaum.

Amy Arbus After Images

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Amy Arbus uses photography to evoke the classical paintings of Picasso, Modigliani, Balthus, and Ingres, bringing the subjects to life.

A series of her photographs, After Images, is featured in the Main Gallery of the Griffin Museum April 9 through June 2. An opening reception with the artist is April 11, 7-8:30 p.m.

"I chose portraits that I found emotionally intense and heartbreakingly beautiful," says Arbus.

She then photographed actor friends and other models to reflect those paintings.

"Re-enacting a painting requires a very deliberate kind of scrutiny," Arbus says. "It felt like dissecting and re-assembling. I was always too intimidated to create portraits in the style of another photographer, yet ironically with this series, in taking liberties from the original, I feel I was able to make my most unique body of work yet."

"When people first see them, they aren’t sure if they are looking at paintings or photographs."

Arbus describes her technique. "I learned how to create very soft lighting, imitate the skewed perspectives in the paintings and which colors for skin wouldn’t translate well into photography," she says. "It wasn’t until I was on the set that I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted."

"Occasionally, I would know within minutes that a picture wasn’t going to work, that all the elements wouldn’t come together, so I would move on."

Arbus says she and the actors discussed what might have been happening in the life of the subject of the painting to access a level of empathy.

"To me, they are paintings come to life," she says.

As for continuing the series, Arbus says, "I see this particular body of work as being complete, but inevitability it will inform whatever I do next."

Now Available in the Griffin Bookstore

Now Available in the Griffin Bookstore

Arbus has published four books, including the award winning On the Street and The Inconvenience of Being Born. The New Yorker called her book, The Fourth Wall, her masterpiece. Her advertising clients include Chiat/Day, Foote, Cone and Belding, American Express, Saatchi & Saatchi, SpotCo, New Line Cinema, and Nickelodeon.
Her photographs have appeared in more than 100 hundred periodicals around the world, including New York Magazine, People, Dazed and Confused and The New York Times Magazine.

She teaches portraiture at the International Center of Photography, Maine Media Workshops, and The Fine Arts Work Center.

Arbus is represented by The Schoolhouse Gallery and The Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts. She has had 22 solo exhibitions worldwide and her photographs are a part of the collection of The National Theater in Norway, The New York Public Library, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Digital Silver ImagingThis exhibition is sponsored in part by Digital Silver Imaging

Amy Arbus and Gallerist Mike Carroll of the Schoolhouse Gallery in Conversation and Gallery tour at 7 PM on April 12, 2013 at the Griffin Museum of Photography. $7 Griffin Museum and ASMP Members, $10 Students, $20 Nonmembers. (purchase tickets)

Lance Keimig Desert Nights

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Lance Keimig, who is known for his night photography, says he is “most at ease after the sun has set, free to explore the solitary wonder of this hidden world.”

A series of his images, Desert Nights, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, March 28 through May 6. A reception and informal talk with the artist is April 25, 6-8 p.m.

"Most people experience the desert as a barren and empty wasteland from the comfort of their air-conditioned cars," Keimig says. "Cruising along at 75, it’s easy to miss the subtlety and beauty of the quiet landscapes between the national parks of the American West.
"I’m drawn to the desert by the fierceness of the landscape, and the unique culture of the people who live there."

He adds that in the desert “the evidence of humanity’s tenuous existence there is slowly absorbed back into the Earth, and I’ve long been compelled to photograph it while it lasts. The night provides cover for my photographic explorations, cover from the blistering heat and the hard light of the midday sun."

Keimig, a Massachusetts-based photographer, is best know for nocturnal images which are often made at the juncture of built and natural environments.

His book, Night Photography – Finding Your Way in the Dark, was published by Focal Press in August 2010 and has been translated into six languages.

Keimig is curator of Darkness, Darkness, a traveling exhibit of night photography that opened in 2008 at Harvard University’s Three Columns Gallery, where he was curator from 2005 to 2010.

He has taught at the New England School of Photography in Boston since 2000, and has also taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, The Houston Center for Photography. He leads independent workshops and is a frequent speaker and workshop instructor for photographic events around the country.

His photographs are held in numerous collections including The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, MA, The Boston Athenaeum, The Boston Public Library, The Grace Museum in Abilene, TX, State Street Bank, Fidelity Investments, Paramount Partners, Hitachi, Rayovac, and 3 Com.

Robert Moran Vertigo

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Robert Moran says the photographs in this series explore his reaction to heights and “the fear, fascination, and curiosity they engender in me and the perverse thoughts they inspire.”

The series, Vertigo, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, March 18 through May 19. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions “The Rat Pack Returns” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”


Closing reception May 2, 2013, 6 – 7:30 has been cancelled to circumstances beyond our control

“On a personal level, these photographs are an examination of my lifelong experience of vertigo,” Moran says. “They explore the connection between my most disturbing thoughts and the structures that inspire those thoughts.”

And, he says, “On a more universal level, they are an attempt to celebrate life’s everyday sights and often unnoticed scenery – the quotidian world that contains life’s wonder and speaks to its mysterious uncertainty.”

The images of towers, billboards, and tall buildings have been cut apart and rearranged into collages that juxtapose the structures’ shapes, sizes, and purposes. In the final step, color and texture have been added.

Moran, a fine art photographer, lives on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. His interest in photography began at age 12. After studying art at the University of Maine, he ran several businesses over the course of 20 years.

During that time, he pursued personal photography projects on trips to Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. His recent undertakings have taken him to Cuba and Antarctica.

Moran’s work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. His photographs are included in private collections in the U.S., as well as in Australia and Europe. His award-winning photographs have recently been published in The Photo Review, Shots Magazine, and B&W + Color Magazine.

Sean Gold Horn Pond at Aberjona

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Horn Pond in Woburn, MA. has been influential in Sean Gold’s life and evolution as a photographer.

After moving from the city to the suburbs in third grade, Horn Pond became his refuge. More than a decade later, he would roam the woods near the pond taking pictures. After he became a professional photographer, he returned to the pond to measure his photographic achievements.

A series of his photographs, Horn Pond, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Aberjona River Gallery in Winchester, MA, February 26 through April 22. A reception with the artist is March 19, 6-7:30 p.m.

“Horn Pond was my training ground, from novice to professional,” says Gold. “It is the place I went when I felt inspired to create, or to just do anything other than what I was doing. It was there that I learned first hand that you need a higher shutter speed if you are going to catch that Great Blue Heron going for a fish, or a small aperture to make sure that whole scene, from one end of the pond to the other, is in focus.

“These images tell, or rather show, that story,” he adds. “This is part of my evolution, from my compositions, to my subject matter, to my processing. And as they say in science, for it to be a viable experiment there must be only one variable and that was my knowledge and passion.”

Gold is a professional photographer from Boston. He began with photographing landscapes, and shortly after added wildlife. He recently has started photographing people.

Together with photographer David Gartner, he shot the images for an architectural book celebrating the 15th anniversary of Sunny Isles, FLA, A Source of Community Pride –The Architecture of Sunny Isles Beach.

Senior/Family Sunday with Sean Gold
At the Griffin Museum
March 10, 3 PM

Admission is FREE and open to all. Please RSVP to the Griffin, 781-729-1158. Senior/Family Sunday is sponsored in part by Salter Healthcare, New Horizons, EnKa Society, and the Mount Vernon House.

Ellen Feldman A Dancer in Her Studio 1986-2011

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Ellen Feldman is a fine arts photographer whose on-going emphasis is spontaneity. This is reflected in her street photography and her long-term project photographing a dancer.

A series of her images, A Dancer in Her Studio 1986 – 2011, is featured at The Griffin Museum at the Cambridge Homes, 360 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA, March 5 through May 20. An opening reception with the artist is March 12, 6-7 p.m.

“Nicole Pierce, modern dancer and choreographer extraordinaire, has been a favorite subject of mine for over 10 years,” says Feldman. “I photograph her on Sunday mornings every few months – sometimes more frequently.

“I’m free to shoot while Nicole puts together her weekly dance class at Greene Street Studios in Cambridge. She doesn’t stop to pose for me, so in a sense my process is the same as when I am photographing in city streets, “ Feldman adds. “I like the spontaneity of the ever-changing present, never quite sure what the next instant will bring.”

All the photos in the exhibit are black and white digital prints, originally from negatives, slides, or a digital source.

Feldman, of Cambridge, MA, has studied photography at the Maine Photographic Workshops, Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown, and the Photography Atelier, Lesley University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music from Barnard College and a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University.

Feldman is the photography editor of the Women’s Review of Books, a monthly journal published by Wellesley College, and a member of the Cambridge Art Association, and ‘soupgroup,’ an ongoing collaboration and critique group.

She is also a film scholar. Her paper, The Conversation: A Study in Surveillance, was awarded third place in the 2006 National Paper Prize Competition sponsored by the University Film and Video Association

Feldman’s recent work includes photographing toy characters in urban settings. She also has three self-published books, Les Mysteres de Paris/Paris Mysteries, A Week in Prague: Wall People /Street People; and The Dancer as the Invisible Girl.

The public is welcome to view the exhibit Monday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Please check in with the receptionist.

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