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Posted 3 weeks ago

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Posted 3 weeks ago

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Posted 2 months ago

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First Day First day of spring, in the Northern hemisphere! Congratulations to you all, long winter survivors, and especially those of us who were greeted by the arriving equinox with a foot of snow yesterday! Say what you may, spring is in the air.. And on this sentimental note I want to send you a bouquet of flowers… I borrowed them from my friend Christina before giving them to her for her birthday… It’s a mysterious and rebellious looking flower, with an equally rebellious name: Rununculus, a.k.a. Persian buttercup. It has that antique patina and textured presence that is reminiscent of Flemish still life paintings. Today is also the first day of my new migrated blog. As Posterous - which I’ve used for over 3 years as my blog host - will be closing their virtual doors in April, it was time to migrate to new pastures. After some nerdy conversing with my programmer - extraordinaire husband Agustin, our choice fell on Tumblr, an open, simple and connected platform. I fell in love with the theme Solaris (its name borrowed from the 1972 movie by the visionary Soviet director Andrei Tarkvosky). Agustin then migrated all the contents of my old blog to Tumblr using JustMigrate - a task that we have been dreading since Posterous made the announcement, but that was made easy and quite seamless by the websites’s interface. Thank you to Posterous for having been a great host, to JustMigrate team for making useful tools, and to you Agus, for making my life easier (and more beautiful all around)!

First Day

First day of spring, in the Northern hemisphere! Congratulations to you all, long winter survivors, and especially those of us who were greeted by the arriving equinox with a foot of snow yesterday! Say what you may, spring is in the air.. And on this sentimental note I want to send you a bouquet of flowers… I borrowed them from my friend Christina before giving them to her for her birthday… It’s a mysterious and rebellious looking flower, with an equally rebellious name: Rununculus, a.k.a. Persian buttercup. It has that antique patina and textured presence that is reminiscent of Flemish still life paintings.

Today is also the first day of my new migrated blog. As Posterous - which I’ve used for over 3 years as my blog host - will be closing their virtual doors in April, it was time to migrate to new pastures. After some nerdy conversing with my programmer - extraordinaire husband Agustin, our choice fell on Tumblr, an open, simple and connected platform. I fell in love with the theme Solaris (its name borrowed from the 1972 movie by the visionary Soviet director Andrei Tarkvosky). Agustin then migrated all the contents of my old blog to Tumblr using JustMigrate - a task that we have been dreading since Posterous made the announcement, but that was made easy and quite seamless by the websites’s interface. Thank you to Posterous for having been a great host, to JustMigrate team for making useful tools, and to you Agus, for making my life easier (and more beautiful all around)!

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Posted 6 months ago

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PRC 2012 Benefit Auction prints available for 3 MORE DAYS! Even though the Photographic Resource Center’s 2012 Benefit Auction is over, you can still support the PRC and build your photography collection!  PRC is offering framed prints for sale at the minimum bid price, for 3 more days only!   For the list of all available work click HERE. My Untitled 3 diptych from the ‘Daudz mīļu buču!’ (Many Loving Kisses!) series is in lot No.75.  It is work I made this summer, continuing my photographic assemblies series printed on airmail paper.  Click HERE more more info. Untitled 3 (diptych).  ’Daudz mīļu buču!’ (Many Loving Kisses!) Series.  2010/2012

PRC 2012 Benefit Auction prints available for 3 MORE DAYS!

Even though the Photographic Resource Center’s 2012 Benefit Auction is over, you can still support the PRC and build your photography collection!  PRC is offering framed prints for sale at the minimum bid price, for 3 more days only!   For the list of all available work click HERE. 
My Untitled 3 diptych from the ‘Daudz mīļu buču!’ (Many Loving Kisses!) series is in lot No.75.  It is work I made this summer, continuing my photographic assemblies series printed on airmail paper.  Click HERE more more info. 
Untitled 3 (diptych).  ’Daudz mīļu buču!’ (Many Loving Kisses!) Series.  2010/2012

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Posted 6 months ago

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Amherst Biennial 2012 - Snapshots from the Opening Reception in October

Here are some snapshots from the opening reception at the Boltwood pop-up Gallery, the Biennial Central, in downtown Amherst back in October.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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Posted 6 months ago

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Amherst Biennial 2012 shines tonight!

Come out to town tonight for the monthly Amherst Arts Walk!  Amherst Biennial 2012 sites will be open and bustling with life, from 5 til 9 o’clock.  
Visit Amherst Biennial website for more information.  
Click HERE for a beautifully designed interactive Amherst Biennial 2012 Tour map.

Two of my recent works are on display in No. 1 on the map, the Boltwood Gallery, behind Judy’s restaurant, while Blue Line, a photograph of a light installation by Erika Zekos from 2010 is on display at Frost Library Gallery at Amherst College (No. 12 on the map) 
Hope to see you there! 

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A Return Visit 2011/2012  Triptych/Archival B&W Inkjet Print
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Unexpectedly So 2011/2012  Triptych/Archival B&W Inkjet Print

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Blue Line  2010 Archival Color Inkjet Print

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Posted 9 months ago

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NEPR Showcase - Cinematic Highlights

This is the final week of the New England Portfolio Review Showcase at the Boston Photographic Resource Center.  If you are in the area, please stop by.  The last day to see the exhibit is this coming Saturday. 
Click here to find more info about the Showcase. Read the review of the show written for the Boston Globe by the Pulitzer-winning art and photography critic Mark Feeney.  For me, the most moving lines in the article arrive in the form of Feeney’s observation of light in Phillip Jones’s glowing potent images: 

“Philip Jones takes black-and-white photographs of urban structures or sites at night: the Tobin Bridge, Times Square, the Unisphere in New York’s Flushing Meadow, and so on. The images are cool, pristine, and extremely handsome, with a slight air of mystery. Both the handsomeness and the mystery owe a great deal to the pearliness of Jones’s light. It’s almost as if the shutter has clicked just as the bridge or underpass or whatever has exhaled.”  …And as if Jones’s camera was enlivened with this exhaled breath.  These night photographs are far from being still, they seem to push through the limitations of the medium, and imbue the two-dimensional photographic canvas with energy, pulsating and breathing in time. 

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Flame Towers by Phillip Jones

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Steel Cylinder by Phillip Jones

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Logan Airport.  10 Minutes, by Phillip JonesLiz Devlin’s review of the NEPR Showcase for the Photo Nights Boston Blog highlights, along other artists’ work, the powerful and emotionally captivating and cinematic installation, Unrelenting Silence, by Cambridge-based photographer and artist Beth Hankes.   
In Beth’s words:

“This installation documents what is felt during the arc of passionate experience –that which is only visceral, but still familiar. What begins as something unruly and beautifully consuming turns into disillusion. The connection dissolves - not in an instant, but many: affection segments and shatters, joy recedes, pain surges. After the fallout, looking back, the memories become hazy. Some disappear, but others remain, still blurred but insistent, obsessive and silent.”If you are to stand in front of this installation you will feel the energy of the captured encounter.  It dominates the space around it, creating its own aura, mysterious, tense and questioning.  It’s not as much about satisfying your curiosity, answering *your* questions, but more about pushing you to your own comfort limits, with the questions coming *your* way. 

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Unrelenting Silence, Installation shot by Beth HankesAnd of course, there was my own work, with its more ephemeral and temporal presence.  I consciously chose not to frame my assemblies for the exhibition, to emphasize the fragility of the medium and the ephemeral, ever-changing context of the images themselves.  As I wrote in my previous post, these pieces are printed on now almost extinct airmail paper and then painstakingly pieced together.  I am debating however whether to frame them for more permanent installations.  A permanent ephemeron it would be, wouldn’t it?  An oxymoron in itself.    

I would like to say a *huge* Thank You to the other five artists for sharing their amazing work, to the PRC staff for mounting this impressive exhibition, and especially to Glenn Ruga and Julie Kukharenko for helping me with selection of the series for the exhibition.  Julie, you saved me by putting out fires when some of my airmail pieces wanted to become airborne! Thank you!  Here are a couple of photographs Julie took during the installation of one of my two series on display, ‘Many Loving Kisses!’ on August 2nd, with the art installer extraordinaire, Vinnie.  

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And finally, click here to peruse the photos from the opening reception on August 9th

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Posted 9 months ago

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New England Portfolio Review Showcase - Opening Reception today I am very happy to announce that the Opening Reception for the NEPR (New England Portfolio Review) Showcase will be held at the Boston Photographic Resource Center (PRC), located at 832 Commonwealth Ave. from 6 to 8pm. today.  Work from two of my photo assemblies series printed on airmail paper were selected for the show.  The exhibit will feature 6 New England photographers, selected by the PRC staff from the pool of artists showing work a the NEPR Portfolio Walk in May 2012.  According to PRC, “NEPR Showcase includes an interesting variety of work, ranging from a site-specific photo installation dealing with the arc of passionate experience to investigations of changing industrial landscapes to fragmented print on airmail paper assembled into collages.  The artists - emerging and established - clearly demonstrate the vast diversity in today’s photographic practice in Massachusetts.  The PRC staff was particularly drawn to these unique projects due to their excellent craftsmanship and artistic voice.” You can find more information about the participating artists by clicking HERE   And to give you a small preview of my work on display, below is one of the pieces, Untitled from the Time Still Series.  2008-2012 (Ongoing) This work consists of 6 photographic fragments, individually printed on 6 sheets of airmail paper, assembled into one panel and mounted on a heavy-weight Strathmore watercolor paper.The process of making this, and other pieces in these series, is slow and tedious.  It also presents a certain challenge, since airmail paper is very fragile and ephemeral, which makes it extremely hard to work with.  On the other hand, because of this fragility, it intrinsically possesses the very quality - that of being perishable - that these series are centered on: time, displacement, search of identity, and long-distance relationships. From my artist statement for the Time Still series: Time = Tempus (Latin) ->…Temporary = Emphemeral - slight and perishableTime present and time pastAre both perhaps present in time future,And time future contained in time past.If all time is eternally presentAll time is unredeemable.…Words move, music movesOnly in time; but that which is only livingCan only die. Words, after speech, reachInto the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,Can words or music reachThe stillness… (T.S. Eliott, Four Quartets: Burnt Norton, I & IV)‘Time Still’ speaks of that unattainable fictional point of stillness, or the present, around which Time hinges. Even in perceived stillness, the present Time is fragmented,  ephemeral, and often obscured. As in Letters Between the (Coast) Lines, the medium of artwork - fragmented assembly of photographs printed on airmail paper - attempts to convey these qualities of fragmentation, ephemerality and obfuscation, even as we behold the most life-reaffirming and persistent forms of life. To get insight into my other series in the show, Many Loving Kisses,  click HERE   I hope your summer is going well, and hope to see many of you in Boston tonight!  [[posterous-content:5zjrmnmcQYw5TktpMcOT]]

New England Portfolio Review Showcase - Opening Reception today

I am very happy to announce that the Opening Reception for the NEPR (New England Portfolio Review) Showcase will be held at the Boston Photographic Resource Center (PRC), located at 832 Commonwealth Ave. from 6 to 8pm. today.  Work from two of my photo assemblies series printed on airmail paper were selected for the show.  
The exhibit will feature 6 New England photographers, selected by the PRC staff from the pool of artists showing work a the NEPR Portfolio Walk in May 2012.  According to PRC, “NEPR Showcase includes an interesting variety of work, ranging from a site-specific photo installation dealing with the arc of passionate experience to investigations of changing industrial landscapes to fragmented print on airmail paper assembled into collages.  The artists - emerging and established - clearly demonstrate the vast diversity in today’s photographic practice in Massachusetts.  The PRC staff was particularly drawn to these unique projects due to their excellent craftsmanship and artistic voice.” 

You can find more information about the participating artists by clicking HERE   

And to give you a small preview of my work on display, below is one of the pieces, Untitled from the Time Still Series.  2008-2012 (Ongoing) 
This work consists of 6 photographic fragments, individually printed on 6 sheets of airmail paper, assembled into one panel and mounted on a heavy-weight Strathmore watercolor paper.
The process of making this, and other pieces in these series, is slow and tedious.  It also presents a certain challenge, since airmail paper is very fragile and ephemeral, which makes it extremely hard to work with.  On the other hand, because of this fragility, it intrinsically possesses the very quality - that of being perishable - that these series are centered on: time, displacement, search of identity, and long-distance relationships. 

From my artist statement for the Time Still series: 
Time = Tempus (Latin) ->
…Temporary = Emphemeral - slight and perishable

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
…
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness…
(T.S. Eliott, Four Quartets: Burnt Norton, I & IV)
‘Time Still’ speaks of that unattainable fictional point of stillness, or the present, around which Time hinges. 
Even in perceived stillness, the present Time is fragmented,  ephemeral, and often obscured. 

As in Letters Between the (Coast) Lines, the medium of artwork - fragmented assembly of photographs printed on airmail paper - attempts to convey these qualities of fragmentation, ephemerality and obfuscation, even as we behold the most life-reaffirming and persistent forms of life. 

To get insight into my other series in the show, Many Loving Kisses,  click HERE   
I hope your summer is going well, and hope to see many of you in Boston tonight!  

[[posterous-content:5zjrmnmcQYw5TktpMcOT]]

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Posted 1 year ago

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Russia-By-Rail

Read and watch NPR’s reporter David Green and photographer David Gilkey’s account of their 2-week long journey through Russia, from Moscow to Vladivostok, by train.  
With passable roads for wheeled transport still a rare site in the vast expanse of Siberia, the Trans-Siberian railway is a monster of a road: at 6000 miles it is the longest railroad in the world.  And the landscape opening up to anyone traveling along it - formidable and unforgiving. 

“The things to do were amazing and the places to see were epic; but the people, the people are what made it all worth the effort”, said Gilkey.  While going through his outtakes, a photo gallery emerged with stark images capturing the strength and self-assuredness of the Russians. 
“It was in their eyes.  You could see that life is tough - nothing comes easy - but it has made them stronger,” he said.  ”The adversity is always present - in life, in government, but they march through it while holding on to a strong sense of the past.”

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Storm clouds pass above a wintery landscape on the shores of Lake Baikal in central Russia.  Baikal is the world’s largest and oldest lake and holds nearly 20 percent of the world’s fresh water. 
(David Gilkey/NPR)

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The route of the trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok

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Posted 1 year ago

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Blueberry Ice Cream of Snow Mounds A wonderful Russian photographer, Evgenia Arbugaeva, documents life in her native Tiksi, a small town in Northern Siberia.  As a young girl, I had a layover in Tiksi, on my way further Northeast to my future home in the remote town of Chersky.  My memories of Tiksi are indelible: first aurora borealis, unbelievable cold, the world outside the small airport lost to endless darkness and 2 meter deep blanket of snow and ice.  See it through Evgenia’s eyes, in her collection called Tiksi… Evgenia Arbugaeva, Tiksi This is Evgenia’s introduction to the project: Once upon a time in Siberia, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, in a warm bed in a small town, a little girl woke up from a dream.  It was morning, but it was still dark out, for the little town was so far North that the sun would not show itself for many months. They called this the Polar Night. The little girl rubbed the sleep from her eyes and dressed in the dark.  She put on her pink jacket and red stocking cap and stepped outside.  Her breath froze and she walked in the direction of school.  All around her were endless fields of frozen tundra.  But the fields were not white like you might think, for up above the Aurora Borealis lit up the sky.  It looked like a big green breath frozen in the heavens and all around the little girl were beautiful colors.  The snow was painted green.  And on some mornings—if she was lucky—she’d even see bits of blue, yellow and pink on her walk to school. She loved these colors very much.  Walking through them made her imagination come alive.  She liked to think of the fields as blank canvases for Mother Nature to paint upon.  And what did that make her?  Was she part of the painting too, in her pink jacket and red hat? She smiled and her mind began dreaming of the days when the Polar Night would come to an end, when the first sun would light up the snowy mountains, making it look like blueberry ice cream.  And then the summer would come, the snow would melt and the tundra would transform into planet Mars with it’s golden color seeming to stretch out forever in every direction. She thought to herself, “Every season has its own colors.”  She stored all these colors in her heart, and walked beneath the Aurora Borealis in this little town way up North.    The town was called Tiksi. To be continued… Congratulations to Eugenia, the Magenta Foundation’s Bright Spark Award 2012 winner!

Blueberry Ice Cream of Snow Mounds

A wonderful Russian photographer, Evgenia Arbugaeva, documents life in her native Tiksi, a small town in Northern Siberia.  As a young girl, I had a layover in Tiksi, on my way further Northeast to my future home in the remote town of Chersky.  My memories of Tiksi are indelible: first aurora borealis, unbelievable cold, the world outside the small airport lost to endless darkness and 2 meter deep blanket of snow and ice.  See it through Evgenia’s eyes, in her collection called Tiksi…
Evgenia Arbugaeva, Tiksi

This is Evgenia’s introduction to the project:
Once upon a time in Siberia, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, in a warm bed in a small town, a little girl woke up from a dream.  It was morning, but it was still dark out, for the little town was so far North that the sun would not show itself for many months. They called this the Polar Night.

The little girl rubbed the sleep from her eyes and dressed in the dark.  She put on her pink jacket and red stocking cap and stepped outside.  Her breath froze and she walked in the direction of school.  All around her were endless fields of frozen tundra.  But the fields were not white like you might think, for up above the Aurora Borealis lit up the sky.  It looked like a big green breath frozen in the heavens and all around the little girl were beautiful colors.  The snow was painted green.  And on some mornings—if she was lucky—she’d even see bits of blue, yellow and pink on her walk to school.
She loved these colors very much.  Walking through them made her imagination come alive.  She liked to think of the fields as blank canvases for Mother Nature to paint upon.  And what did that make her?  Was she part of the painting too, in her pink jacket and red hat?

She smiled and her mind began dreaming of the days when the Polar Night would come to an end, when the first sun would light up the snowy mountains, making it look like blueberry ice cream.  And then the summer would come, the snow would melt and the tundra would transform into planet Mars with it’s golden color seeming to stretch out forever in every direction.
She thought to herself, “Every season has its own colors.”  She stored all these colors in her heart, and walked beneath the Aurora Borealis in this little town way up North.   

The town was called Tiksi.
To be continued…

Congratulations to Eugenia, the Magenta Foundation’s Bright Spark Award 2012 winner!

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