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Posted on September 29, 2017

On Orlando
Ruth Lauer Manenti
October 11 – December 31, 2017

Extended until December 31, 2017

  • Trees on a hill opens IMAGE file
    © Ruth Lauer Manenti
  • Hill opens IMAGE file
    © Ruth Lauer Manenti
  • Trees on a hill opens IMAGE file
    © Ruth Lauer Manenti

book and hand turning pages

I was in Telluride, Colorado taking photographs. The year had been a difficult one. I had experienced hardship, loss, scandal, disappointment and illness. I had become fragile and untrusting.

In Telluride I read Orlando by Virginia Woolf. The book begins with Orlando as a young nobleman and an attendant and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. After the queen’s death he falls in love with a Russian princess and because she was not a member of the English aristocracy the relationship was not allowed. Yet, so in love was Orlando that he cared not for his reputation and the two lovers plan an elopement to Russia arranging to meet by a bridge at midnight. But the princess doesn’t come, leaving Orlando alone on the coldest night of the early seventeenth century.

As an outcast Orlando becomes a recluse and returns to writing poetry. After several years, he shows his epic poem to a famous poet, Nicholas Greene, who is dismissive of the manuscript. A few months later Mr. Greene comes out with a new book. Inside the book Orlando discovers his own poem under Greene’s name. These two betrayals cause Orlando such great despair that he sleeps for seven days and seven nights. Those near him tried to rouse him and still Orlando slept. When he awakens he sees that his body has transformed into that of a female, and continues to live on as a woman.

While reading this novel I would pause to look through the windows. The assortment of windows, at different times of day brought a variety of views altering the landscapes and surroundings, at times summoning me to leave the indoor world, step outside and go walking. It was breezy outside. There was beauty in every direction. As the winds blew around me, the winds moved within me and as the clouds passed through the sky, so did the ups and downs of the last year. Orlando had turned me into a poet….. and what was scandal compared with poetry? As a poet I could see the mountains as I never before had. The low lands where the streams flow and the high mountain peaks covered with snow even in July, sung like ascending and descending musical scales. Life had to be that way. For valleys are the natural lows, the depressions that fall beneath the earth’s surface, and peaks are the natural highs that flower in their prime and allow for views of grandeur and understanding. I thought to myself, “I’ll be alright.”

While sleeping I was aware of the fresh air of the high altitude and when I awoke, though it had been 7 hours and not days my sorrow had turned into a pebble thrown from a high cliff down to where it could no longer be seen, where it would, without a word, land and disappear leaving just the slightest trace, good enough to have served a purpose.

These photographs were taken on walks inspired by my reading of Orlando last spring.

–Ruth Lauer Manenti

BIO
Ruth received a BFA in painting from The School of Visual Arts in NYC and an MFA in drawing, printmaking and painting from the Yale School of Art, where she later taught drawing and printmaking. She also taught drawing, painting, and printmaking at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Ruth’s work has been exhibited at the Bill Maynes Art Gallery, the Lower East Side Printshop, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Paula Cooper Gallery, The Griffin Museum of Photography, Dartmouth College and Le Salon Vert in Geneva, Switzerland. Ruth was a recipient of the 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts grant in photography.

Ruth’s work has been collected by the New York Public Library as well as many private collections including Lois Conner, Louise Fishman, An-My Lê, Frances Barth, Bruce Gagnier, Sylvia Mangold, Seane Corn, Dan Walsh, Chris Martin, Connie Hansen and Russell Peacock.

 

 

 

 

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Floor Plan

Amy Rindskopf's Terra Novus

At the market, I pick each one up, pulled in by the shapes as they sit together, waiting. I feel its heft in my hand, enjoy the textures of the skin or peel, and begin to look closer and closer. The patterns on each individual surface marks them as distinct. I push further still, discovering territory unseen by the casual observer, a new land. I am like a satellite orbiting a distant planet, taking the first-ever images of this newly envisioned place.

This project started as an homage to Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30 (I am, ironically, allergic to peppers). As I looked for my subject matter at the market, I found that I wasn’t drawn to just one single fruit or vegetable. There were so many choices, appealing to both hand and eye. I decided to print in black and white to help make the images visually more about the shapes, and not about guessing which fruit is smoothest, which vegetable is greenest.

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Tricia Gahagan

 

Photography has been paramount in my personal path of healing from disease and

connecting with consciousness. The intention of my work is to overcome the limits of the

mind and engage the spirit. Like a Zen koan, my images are paradoxes hidden in plain

sight. They are intended to be sat with meditatively, eventually revealing greater truths

about the world and about one’s self.

 

John Chervinsky’s photography is a testament to pensive work without simple answers;

it connects by encouraging discovery and altering perspectives. I see this scholarship

as a potential to continue his legacy and evolve the boundaries of how photography can

explore the human condition.

 

Growing my artistic skill and voice as an emerging photographer is critical, I see this as

a rare opportunity to strengthen my foundation and transition towards an established

and influential future. I am thirsty to engage viewers and provide a transformative

experience through my work. I have been honing my current project and building a plan

for its complete execution. The incredible Griffin community of mentors and the

generous funds would be instrumental for its development. I deeply recognize the

hallmark moment this could be for the introduction of the work. Thank you for providing

this incredible opportunity for budding visions and artists that know they have something

greater to share with the world.

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