Well, with 68 different Pacific Northwest photographers represented in the Blue Sky 2013 Photography Viewing Drawers, and just under a week until Thanksgiving, we wrap up our weekly DRAWERS SPOTLIGHT with this final peek. Rounds one, two, three, four and five, and six can be found by clicking here.
ALL of the prints in the Drawers are for sale! Come in to the gallery 12-5pm, Tuesday- Sunday, and take a closer look. These photos represent a wide range of subjects, themes, and price-points — you’re likely to find the perfect holiday gift for your favorite photographer!
Email Amanda at amandaclem@blueskygallery.org or call (503) 225-0210 to inquire about prices and availability.
What are the Drawers? Blue Sky established the Pacific Northwest Photography Viewing Drawers program in 2007 to feature a juried, public archive of original prints by contemporary photographers based in the region. Our Drawers program has quickly become a favorite aspect of Blue Sky’s ongoing programming, available to approximately 25,000 visitors annually. For 2012—to coincide with the newly inaugurated Portland Photo Month (every April)—Blue Sky expanded the geographic scope of the Drawers program to include photographers from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, and Alaska.
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Jonathan Taylor, Seattle, WA
Artist Statement: I am submitting these photographs as a photographer, print-maker, sculptor, architect and someone who is very interested in design in general. I could no more be classified as a photographer than a father or a painter. I happen to enjoy all forms or art and what I am submitting are images of work that are mostly silver based chemically modified outputs with attachments made by mechanically sewing developed pieces to sensitized paper then exposing that paper to another image then pouring developer on the paper and sometimes stopping the chemical process after several pours of developer. All work is done with commercially available professional chemicals and Ilford papers in an archival regiment of developing and washing.
From: $150 – $650
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Michael Van Buskirk, Portland OR
Artist Statement: For me, photography finds its soul in the final print, an authentic and archival object to see, to hold, to frame and to hang. Combining technologies that bridge photographic practices from the 19th into the 21st century, I prepare and digitally print large-scale negatives from digital files. I then contact print under ultraviolet light exclusively in the noble metals, platinum and palladium, hand-coated onto heavyweight, 100% cotton rag watercolor paper. Using digital negatives makes readily available both recent digital camera images as well as those from older film work. In addition, adjusting the image digitally permits a more predictable linear translation of the multitudinous shades of gray from the original subject to the final print. Preparing negatives digitally also allows incremental adjustments of images that fully exploit the renowned tonal breadth of the platinum/palladium printing process. I believe that the handcrafting of each print individually melds the most basic elements of art and science into a uniquely tendered archival photograph. I am not the first photographer to aspire to photograph the Gaspé. Paul Strand’s work from the 1920’s continues to influence contemporary photographers. Despite the relentless alterations of these landscapes by the advance of time, strong visual echoes of Strand’s period remain. Jutting into the Gulf of St Lawrence and comprising the southern mouth of the St. Lawrence River, the Gaspé’s raw coastal beauty continues to inspire. Lying 500 miles east of Boston, the Gaspé may best be approached from its most elemental aspect, the sea. Sailing from Gloucester, I captured images depicting ancient and modern landmarks of the northeastern shore with emphasis upon its rocky coast, Percé Rock and its giant seabirds, the northern gannets.
From: $300
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Terri Warpinski, Eugene, OR
Artist Statement: In 1995 I began crossing the US-Mexico regularly over a period of three years while working on another project. A few years later I was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Israel at a time that coincided with the outbreak of the 2nd Intifada. These two distinct experiences folded together in the spring of 2009 – the same year that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the felling of the Berlin Wall – when I returned once again to the US- Mexico border region to live and work to witness first hand the dramatic changes to that landscape with the installation of the new border fence. This project examines the complex relationships between personal, cultural and natural histories. Through constructs of time, and in landscape as trace of socio-cultural interaction, the project is informed by the decadal changes in these varying geographies, a period of time that saw the construction of physical barriers between states, and their accompanying expressions of power. In photographing landscapes that have been repurposed to articulate division – familiar and foreign, contemporary and historic – this project resists a metaphoric collapse in favor of a parallel reading. With images from present-day Berlin functioning as both prologue and epilogue, the combined works present differing constructions of subjectivity in relation to borders and bordering.
From: $1,500
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Kevin Wildermuth, Seattle, WA
Artist Statement: Above— The sky is forever associated with heaven, rendered in blues – and whites and grays – but always in the mind’s eye blue, the color of purity and calmness. Ethereal, eternal, sublime, it is a vast abstract painting and mood ring, constantly changing, constantly out of reach. Though we pierce it with our terrestrial-born inventions, or taint it with our emissions, the sky remains a creation of nature, dependably renewing itself, a reminder of purity and the promise of bliss. Below— At ground level is all the detritus of mankind, at rest and yet on the move. Pickup trucks roam the streets, traveling bins for the broken and the useless, displaying the folly, the waste and the chaos of our material world. Old rubber gloves, fifty year old TV trays, bent folding chairs, a dairy crate full of rusty motor scooter mufflers – all destined to traverse from place to place, accompanied by grass clippings, leftover bricks, and spent paper cups, going nowhere. The sky too, of course, is going nowhere. And in other ways these two disparate worlds are linked. The careful observer will notice that the one world often mirrors the other in some way, subtle or obvious. The tarps in a pickup truck bed arrange themselves in the shape of clouds, while the distribution of forgotten objects in the truck-bed echoes the arrangement of clouds above it. Other alignments are more abstract. A cloud formation continues the gesture suggested by a load of cut branch-wood and the dark scene of dejected black rubber boots is mocked by an angry charcoal cloud in a swirl of more carefree cohorts. Here the connections between the heavenly and the earthbound are made explicit – and offered as a curiosity and manifesto to guide others in their own observations.
From: $700
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David Wyatt, Kennewick, WA
Artist Statement: A resident of the Tri-Cities for 23 years, and pilot for over 25 years, I combine two of my passions – flying and photography – to bring new perspectives to otherwise familiar places. Aerial perspectives! Artistic aerial photography was a natural extension of my enjoyment of flying in a small airplane, typically in the early morning hours. Capturing the aerial perspective during the golden hour often means a pre-flight in the dark and lifting off the runway at dawn’s early light. I enjoy capturing aerial artistic views of the Mid-Columbia, including subjects like Hanford history, Ice Age Flood Geology, Columbia and Snake Rivers, and the Columbia River Gorge.
From: $180
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Carol Yarrow, Portland, OR
Artist Statement: Working with these photographs brings back memories of smells; the wet earth, copal incense, animals, cooking, fruit, wet intestines in the slaughterhouse. I can close my eyes and hear the Mayans softly chanting the names of their ancestors in ceremonial incantations. The Mayan Indians, much like the North American Indians, are a captive culture within the dominant Latino structure of Guatemala. They have been subject to the same kind of genocide and racism that runs throughout our own history. The Mayan shamanistic, animist religion was susceptible to the influence of Catholicism because of the similar shared rituals; the burning of incense, alcohol and Coca Cola was used for Christian “holy water”, and also fasting as a ritual. Although the Mayans use the Catholic churches for many of their ceremonies, one gets the impression the Catholicism is only a thin veneer for a culture struggling to survive
From: $400
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Kristin Zabawa, Portland, OR
Artist Statement: My artistic process with animal photography contains a powerful and meditative link with animal spirit. They are my collaborators as vibrant and sentient beings. I am motivated to explore more deeply into this meditative practice of connection with all spirit, as it coaxes and reveals the image. What happens to the animal and myself while we create these images together? My time with the ponies is a meditation on giving up the illusion of control, and the dissolution of boundaries: visual, temporal, and cerebral. I hope to inspire this feeling in others. This is the core of what motivates me as an artist.
From: $100
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That’s all for our 2013 Pacific Viewing Drawers SPOTLIGHT. Thank you for following along!
We hope to see you at Blue Sky soon.
Wishing you the happiest holidays,
Amanda
Membership & Gallery Manager