August 22, 2008  (Winchester, MA)  To create a picture, Pelle Cass pages  through magazines, tears out images that conform to a preconceived idea, cuts and positions the snippets on cardboard, sticks colored map pins into the assemblage, and then he photographs the end product of all his efforts.

An exhibit of his work, Pins, is featured in The Atelier Gallery at the Griffin Museum September 11 through November 2.

“Among other things, there is a story about color itself here; how the color of the pins match up to the color in the pieces of paper I stick them into,’’ says Cass. “And how the pins also match up to the names of colors as they appear in several of these pictures. Other pictures are monochrome; all blue magazine snippets with only blue pins, for example. In other pictures, I deliberately mismatch the pins to the areas of color I place them in. Sometimes, I think of the pins as pixels, and by placing them here and there in a pattern, it is as if I am balancing the color of my composition.’’

Cass says the pins “can suggest aerial views and maps, color coding, the human figure, vegetation, taxonomy and collecting, and naturally, pain.’’ He adds that the magazine imagery often evokes “a foreign world of luxury and ease that seems deeply strange to me.’’

“Pelle Cass’ creative journey is as interesting to me as his final photographs,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “Each photograph seems to grow out of the nourishment supplied by Cass’ experience of the creative process.”

Cass, of Brookline, MA, studied photography at the University of New Mexico; the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Minneapolis College of Art. He holds a B.A. in art history from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

After a hiatus of more than a decade, he resumed photographing in 2002. He is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston and has participated in many group and solo shows. His work is held in the collections of many museums, as well as in private collections. It can be seen at www.pellecass.com.

Cass has been a Polaroid Collection Fellow. He also has been nominated for the ICA, Boston, Artist’s Prize and the Santa Fe Center for Photography Artist’s Prize.

April 10, 2007  (Winchester, MA)  … When photographer Edie Bresler sets up to photograph, she begins by cutting, pinning and sewing a fiberglass window screen, borrowing techniques from the quilting and embroidery traditions.  She then creates photographs by shooting through the screen to capture the landscape outside.  A collection of her unusual photographs will be on display in Griffin Museum’s Emerging Artist Gallery, April 24 – May 27.

Some of the imagery Bresler embeds in the screens is invented and some is inspired by chance encounters with books found in local public libraries, especially in the natural history section.  She might begin with a word, such as “migration”, and looking up the word may prompt a further exploration into “mazes” and then “mates” and finally “the Milky Way”. Bresler surrenders to the flow of her creative juices. Her open-ended journeys lead to unexpected, intricate layers and visual metaphors illustrating the playful and spontaneous nature of the artistic process.

Once the screen is made, Bresler places the screen back into the window and photographs the now manufactured environment in its natural surroundings. Her color photographs will hang next to cyanotypes that she has created from the window screens themselves. Using the screen as a negative and by creating an emulsion mixed from combinations of Ferric ammonium citrate, Potassium Ferricyanide and distilled water; Bresler exposes her image onto rag paper using

ultra-violet light or sunlight. The final processed image is comprised of pale to deep blue tones that Bresler imbues with primitive stitching and other artifacts.

Bresler’s photographs are included in many private and public collections, including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Fidelity Bank, and Polaroid Corporation, and she has exhibited her work throughout the US and abroad.  A graduate of the School of Visual Arts and a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, Bresler is currently on the faculty at Simmons College in the department of Art & Music.”

The Voyage Out will be on display April 24 – May 27, 2007.  An Opening Reception with the artist will be held on Tuesday, April 24 from 7-8:30 PM.  Ms. Bresler will also speak at a Griffin Museum Member-only program beginning at 6:15PM that evening.