The Top Ten Photography Books on My Shelf - #2

#2 - Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking - Ted Orland and David Bayles

Great things can certainly come in small packages, and weighing in at a minuscule 122 pages, 8" x 5.5", and less than half an inch think, this book is worth it's weight in gold.

Written by two longtime friends and working artists, this book is written to make you realize that you, as someone compelled to create art, are not alone in the void. It will help you understand that we all have doubts, fear, and insecurities with regards to our art making, and this can sometimes be enough to keep you on the path, and occasionally break you from a creative slump just by the sheer glacial force of continuing to move forward. It doesn't tell you how to create whatever art form you are working in, but it does try to help inform you on how to keep moving forward, and sometimes, that can be half of the battle.

While both of the authors are photographers, the philosophy enclosed in this book will apply to any medium or artistic endeavor equally as well. This is a book worth having on your shelf, and worth reading, and re-reading as required. You might want more than one copy so that you can give one to a good friend.

"To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this you must first learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have." from Art and Fear, by Ted Orland and David Bayles.

The Ten Best Photography Books on My Shelf - #3

We're closing in on the end of the list, and it's been difficult to arrange the last three entries. Now remember, these are just the ten best photography books on MY shelf, not ANYWHERE. I certainly don't own every photography book ever published.

#3 - Ansel Adams at 100 - John Szarkowski

Released on the 100 year anniversary of Ansel Adams birth (2002), in my opinion, it is one of the great photographic publications. After beginning with a long biographical section on Adams that contains many rarely seen portraits of Adams and contemporaries, it moves to the photographic section of the book. First up of the 114 reproductions included are some of Adams early images from 1920, and then moving chronologically through his life. It is amazing to witness his growth as a technician and as an artist, The reproductions are immaculate and strikingly beautiful. My favorite section of the book is where on opposing leaves, it compares two Adams prints made from the same negative at different periods in Adams life. In all of the cases provided, the images are very different, but both beautiful, proving that as Ansel was fond of saying "The negative is the score, and the print is the performance."

The book's paper is custom-made, it is bound in linen and presented in a linen slipcase. A heavy book that is a pleasure to view.

There is a paperback version available, but I have not personally seen it and have heard reports of a lack of quality in some of the printings, so I cannot vouch for the paperbacks quality as I can the original hardcover.

The Top Ten Photography Books on MY Shelf - #4

My choice for #4 steps away from my bookshelf again, and lands on my DVD rack.

#4 - What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann - DVD

This 80 minute documentary film, directed by Steven Cantor, was released on DVD in April of 2008. Focusing on the period of Ms. Mann's life after Immediate Family, while she absorbs the success of that work, and struggles to put together her next body of work, all the while working her horse farm, being a mother to three children, and a wife to an ailing husband.

This film captures the essence of the artist, displaying her strength and her frailty, her pride and her insecurities, and her family life and thought process. This film is not for the squeamish or for the judgmental, but neither is Mann's work. Many of the images from Immediate Family are included and discussed in this film, and the new work from What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann can sometimes be difficult to look at, but look at it we must, to gain perspective on our own existence, and lessen the fear of what is inevitable for all of us.

Art New England, Contemporary Art and Culture

I'm honored to have been the lone New Hampshire artist reviewed in the June/July/August Issue of Art New England. It doesn't seem to have hit the web site yet, but the print version showed up in my mail box today. Thank you to Christopher Volpe who wrote the review, and to Art New England for including me.

Review of Michael Garlington Exhibit at Kimball-Jenkins Estate

This collection of images from the book “Portraits from the Belly of the Whale” is what happens when Joel-Peter Witkin meets Diane Arbus. These photographs are more subtle and lack the deliberately graphic shock value of Witkin, and incorporate some of the humanity of the Arbus freak show portraits. As the photographer, Michael Garlington describes them; they are “disturbing portraits that sardonically reveal the darker edges of the human personality.”

You form a strange emotional connection to the subjects in each image as you study them, being horrified and caring for them at the same time.

The first image you encounter upon entering the exhibit is “Mr. Milton Frisbie”. He is standing sentry for the show, only subtly hinting at what you about to see. “Mr. Milton Frisbie” is a clown. Not a funny clown, but a tobacco stained, sad, pathetic, and more than just a little frightening clown. This is the clown that people have nightmares about. This is the clown that sneaks out of your closet while you are sleeping and snatches you up, the smell of urine and cigarette smoke embedded in his costume. This is the clown that encourages some people to be afraid of clowns.

This is just the beginning of the emotional avalanche you are about to attempt to outrun. Twenty images hung in four rooms and a hallway of the Jill Coldren-Wilson Gallery of the Kimball-Jenkins Estate in Concord, New Hampshire. All of the images having room to breathe their own fetid breath and engage you with their own empty eyes.

“The Final Sleep of Grandma Ev” is sad and touching in the most soulful places. Humanity and love are personified in the delicate and careful caress of her forehead, with true love peering out from behind the coke bottle glasses of the husband. Nothing specifically tells you that this couple is a husband and wife, but the feeling of overwhelming sadness that you get from this image is that of two people who have shared 40 years together. This appears to be the most personal of the images in this exhibit, appearing to be the only image that may not be meticulously staged.

“The Bleed” is a woman’s nude torso, bleeding from the face, and is disturbing to the core. How does a bloody nose look so severe? Is it her pointy animalistic teeth? Is it the oil black blood running into her mouth and dripping off her chin onto her chest where it is carefully cradled by her hand, not wanting to spill a drop onto the grimy floor that you imagine beneath her?

In “Blind Girl” irony drips from the photograph as the aforementioned blind girl sports a “Blue Ridge Parkway” tee shirt promoting a scenic vista that she will never witness. Shadowed by a mysterious out of focus figure, monitoring her from off her shoulder, is this a protector ensuring that no harm comes to the girl, or is it a malevolent spirit hovering in the background waiting for an opportunity to possess the sightless child?

In “Jabberwocky”, a howl of emotional agony overtakes the subjects face as he is jammed into the left hand side of the frame, contorted and cramped, with his too big Puritan hat amputated by the top of the frame, mirroring his actually amputated foot in the bottom of the frame, and the creases in his hand on his crutch reflecting the creases in his partially buttoned filthy jeans. He mocks the empty path of the right side of the frame that the one legged man will never run through.

Nothing is happenstance in these informationally loaded photographs. All of the images are meticulously staged; everything in the frame is there for a reason. The abuse, scratches, and stains are purposefully placed, creating the illusion of peering through a filth covered window into a nightmare filled world. The subjects stare back at you, aware of your voyeurism and daring you to engage them. At first glance, you recoil, but after the initial shock wears off, you start to look more closely, like you would stare at a traffic accident. After being held hostage by the gaze of these graphic images, you begin to feel a strange attachment to them, kind of like a photographic “Stockholm Syndrome”. These relentless portraits leave a stain on your soul that will be hard to remove. Some stains are good, like the grape Kool-Aid that dripped down your chin on the hot August afternoon when you were nine, and some stains are bad, like the blood embedded in the rough concrete floor after an industrial accident. If this exhibit leaves a good stain or a bad stain, is up to you to decide.

This exhibit runs from June 1st through July 31st in the Jill Coldren-Wilson gallery at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate at 266 North Main Street in Concord, New Hampshire. The gallery is open from Monday through Friday, 9:00 – 4:30. For more information, call (603) 225-3932 or visit www.kimballjenkins.com.