Tag: Fine Arts

Conflict is awesome. At least when you’re trying to tell a story. Or find one, as the case may be.

“I like places where there is a lot of social tension. Where there’s conflict, there’s a story,” says Falls Church-based mixed media artist and writer Christine Stoddard. “I mean, I don’t want anyone to suffer. I just find it more interesting to go to a place where there’s more happening.”

The daughter of a first-generation Salvadoran mother and an American father whose “family identifies strongly with their Scottish roots,” Stoddard searches the world around her for issues of personal identity and “all the ways that people negotiate their individual or group identities.”

Those interests are reflected in a cannon that includes writings, collages, comics and films that have appeared in the New York Transit Museum, The Huffington Post, the Science Museum of Virginia and beyond. Stoddard also curates stories told through various media in her online and print publication Quail Bell Magazine. “I’m interested in feminism, in immigrant culture, in cultural and political identity, in what it means to be a woman and an immigrant in different places, especially second generation,” she says.

Stoddard has found that her own life routinely generates the hum of identity conflict. “So many of the personal essays I’ve written have been about those issues. My sister and I have experienced them just by being the children of immigrant and non-immigrant parents. Catholic and non-Catholic parents. I’ve lived in Northern Virginia, which is cosmopolitan, and Richmond, which is not.”

She describes the year she spent as an undergrad at Grinnell College, where she received a full scholarship as a senior in high school. “I never considered myself a brown person, but in Iowa I felt my brownness because it was very homogeneous. I lived in farm country so lots of the people I ran into were not very educated. That led to a couple of conflicts,” she says. “I don’t regret it, but it was not the right place for me. After a year I transferred to VCU where I had access to a huge art department and faculty and a city.”

Stoddard’s travels populate her current exhibit, a roundup of geographically-minded photo collages titled “Little Stories.” “I can point to the individual photos in the composite and tell you where I took them,” she says. “Many of them are objects or landscapes I encounter while I’m walking or traveling. There are also photos from Mexico, Peru, Scotland, New York and Miami. I like places where there are lots of different people and figuring out who they are.”

The works themselves are mash-ups: explorations not unlike the philosophical spaces she visits every day. “I take digital photos and in Photoshop I composite them to create collages,” she says. “I adjust the opacity. I change the colors. I might adjust the saturation or contrast and brightness. I might take one segment from a photo, take a piece out, and overlay into another photo. There’s a piece called city textures that shows the skyline of Richmond, and there’s copper and a purple squiggle with graffiti over it which is a detail shot I took of a mixed media piece I did. That’s why it has this crinkly aspect, it came from doing acrylic on tissue paper.”

Stoddard became drawn to this form in middle school, when a teacher introduced her art class to the work of Romare Bearden, an artist known for collaging events and subjects drawn from his community and the broader culture of black history. “He has this one series where he retold The Odyssey and The Iliad as if the stories took place in Africa. He played with so many items; he took everything—fabric, cellophane, tissue paper, magazine and newspaper clippings—and he would use found photos and paint and draw and cut very fine figures using sewing scissors. His work was so beautiful, and got me thinking of collage in a different way.”

When she learned Photoshop and began taking photos in high school, Stoddard was off to the artistic races. “I’ve been doing [photo collage] ever since,” she says. “I have hundreds.”

It was also in high school that she began making ’zines, an ideal outlet for her twin interests in art and writing. “They’re usually very political,” she says. “I loved that people were using collages to convey political messages. I still read and make them today.”

As a whole, Stoddard says, collage is the perfect art form for those drawn to the uneven edges of life, to the questions so easily raised by the juxtaposition of contrasting worlds.

“There is something transcendent and accessible about it,” she says. “My actual practice—it’s pretty easy to do those. Anyone with a camera and access to Photoshop can do the same thing. You don’t have to draw even well, you don’t even have to take technically great photos. It’s about the composite, how it all comes together. There’s a low barrier to entry and there’s something political about that.

I’m one of those people who cleans compulsively. I snap into straighten up mode when I feel overwhelmed by the number of notebooks on the sideboard, of unattended flip-flops by the door, of projects on my inexhaustible to-do list.

In my world, order reigns as a reflex—a knee-jerk to save me from drowning in chaos. But why in the world do people like me choose to fight this losing battle?

Virginia artists Felicia Brooks and Leigh Anne Chambers invite this question to the foreground of their new exhibit “A Language Must Be Found.” Curated by Isabelle Brooks, the intern at Chroma Projects, the show includes abstract paintings created over ready-made materials. In Chambers’ case, they’re pieces of vinyl flooring and other cast-offs re-imagined as exploratory art.

The director of the Rawls Museum of Art in Courtland, Virginia, Chambers writes in an e-mail interview with C-VILLE that she initially worked on unstretched canvas hung on the walls of her house, making her bright splashes of color and irregular drippings on clean backgrounds. Inspiration struck when she “wondered what would happen if I painted directly” on to the vinyl flooring she’d been using to protect her walls.

The result was a new layer of metaphor in her work, a deep dive into the utility and thoughtful consideration of social scraps. “With my art, I am interested in pushing boundaries so that the audience is challenged with the idea of looking at something that could be discarded and considering it as something more,” she writes. “For example does the work have to be presented so that it looks like a painting rather than a heap of vinyl flooring? And how much information do you have to include in a painting for it to be read as a painting?”

Brooks, a Charlottesville-based art therapist, is less inclined to push external limits than internal ones. Though her works in “A Language Must Be Found” were developed on bargain-priced Michael’s wall art, the sort of 12″x12″ canvases spray painted black and printed with messages like “Live, Laugh, Love,” she chose them not for symbolic value but rather because they were cheap and she’s a fan of recycling.

“I paint over my work all the time,” Brooks says. “If I could paint on a canvas forever, I would. I know and love everything under the layers, and they become part of [a painting’s] history.” Indeed, her work often resembles keyhole designs, with broadly brushed acrylic dissolving to show layers upon layers of movement underneath.

She shares the belief that patterns emerge through methodical process with Chambers, who writes that “I am always thinking about relationships from one element in a piece to another, for example paint that has created a marbled effect on its own versus the marks that I make intentionally against that paint. I am also thinking about my own relationships with people and ideas, and whatever I am reading or listening to musically informs the work in some way.”

If Chambers defines order as purely relational, Brooks chooses to dance with it. “After I start focusing on bringing forth the shapes and the forms by manipulating the canvas with the paint, the shapes take on a personality of their own. Like ‘You were hiding in that corner, and you were over there, so how do you relate to that one?” she says.

Both artists have pursued their craft for the majority of their lives. Chambers remembers going on a school field trip to a museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she was allowed to help paint the background for an exhibit; she went on to receive both a BFA in painting and an MFA in visual art. Brooks began scribbling when she was just a young girl, and her identity as an artist anchored her throughout school.

Brooks describes how painting has become “a form of meditation. It’s a way to help me connect with myself on a much deeper level. It’s a way to stay grounded and present and also to get outside of myself because I’m working with whatever form presents itself through the act of painting.”

The instinct to find order in chaos is a deeply human need, a longing we attempt to satiate with the taxonomies of science and the tenants of faith. On her website, Chambers explains that her process turns on “George Bataille’s idea of formless,” a notion that “describes the need to give form to everything in order to make it comprehensible.”

She remembers her own young instincts as she attempted to order her world: “I had an art teacher in high school that did not match his plaids when he dressed. I still remember that and wondered why he just did not get it together.”

Most of us want to impose order on chaos to beat back the fear that life is meaningless, that we may be mortal without purpose, that we can’t or won’t make a difference. For these women, art is the answer.

Chambers no longer depends on a culturally informed construction of cleanliness. Brooks, for her part, finds ultimate power in the opposite of deliberation. “Mark making is really important to me,” she says. “Just the simple act of creating a mark on canvas can be so beautiful and so personal. It becomes your own language.”

“A Language Must be Found” is on display at Chroma Projects, 107 Vincennes Rd., through August 23.

What if there was a farm league for artists? This is one of the central questions raised by a new program for emerging artists at the McGuffey Art Center.

In the past, the only way for an artist to join the art cooperative was to participate in a juried application process for associate or renting membership. The primary difference between these two levels of members is a question of a single precious commodity: downtown studio space. Renting members get it; associate members don’t. With the launch of the Incubator Studio, there’s a new option that allows some artists to share a McGuffey studio for a year as they work to further develop their skills.

“We felt the need to offer a space to foster and mentor emerging artists who needed more studio time before applying for membership,” says Eileen French, a current renting member. “McGuffey is home to many established artists who have years of experience to share.”

Charlottesville-based artists Nina Burke, Brielle DuFlon, Deborah Rose Guterbock, Jeremiah Morris and Kelly Doyle Oakes were selected as the inaugural class of Incubator artists for 2014-15. They have spent the last year sharing a low cost studio space in McGuffey and, this month, their work is featured in the McGuffey Art Center’s Summer Group Show.

As the center approaches its 40th anniversary in October, it’s heartening to see it evolving and adapting to the current needs of the local arts community. Presently, there are approximately 140 artists who are McGuffey members, though only 45 or so are renting members. Many of the current artists have been members for years if not decades, so it can be quite competitive for artists looking to find a new space. The Incubator Studio begins to address the very real need for accessible resources and studios, as part of the McGuffey Art Center’s mission.

For the artists in the Incubator Studio, the low cost studio space (between $75 and $110 per month) and mentorship opportunities with other artists have already demonstrated the value of such a program. Many simply needed a place to focus on their art and develop new ideas, away from the stresses of daily life and its numerous commitments. Equally important though, they needed support, encouragement and guidance from fellow artists.

“I decided to apply to be in the Incubator because I really like the McGuffey Art Center and wanted to experience being an artist there,” says Oakes. By day, Oakes is an art teacher at the Covenant School and, during her time in the Incubator, she also volunteered to run a weekly figure drawing session. “I love working with other artists around me and interacting with the public when they come into your studio when you are working,” she says.

Guterbock finds value in the immersive environment. “As an art student, I was accustomed to working around other artists, critiquing each other and fueling a sort of collective creative energy,” she says. “After I graduated, I was left feeling alone with fewer opportunities to work towards creative goals.”

The Incubator Studio also provides a space to engage the broader McGuffey community. “[McGuffey artists] have all been encouraged to stop in and get to know [Incubator artists] and get a feel for how we could help them,” says French. Some of the established artists shared equipment and materials; others offered advice and expertise on what it takes to make a living as an artist.

“There are wonderful individuals [at McGuffey] who have a wealth of knowledge to share and are more than willing to help,” says Guterbock.

So, what’s next? The first Incubator class has already moved out of McGuffey, opening the studio space to a new round of artists who moved in at the beginning of July and will spend the next year working together with the McGuffey community.

And as for the outgoing Incubator residents, after their group show they will each move on to new studio spaces and continue their artistic practices a little wiser than before. Some will surely get called up to the major league at some point. “My goal is to work hard for the next six months and try to jury in to be a [McGuffey] member,” says Oakes.

The Summer Group Show featuring work from the Incubator Studio will remain on display at the McGuffey Art Center through August 17, with a First Fridays reception on August 7.

Ever notice how many artists call attention to negative space?

The white of the canvas unobscured by paint. The breath on all sides of a published poem, each word a drop in the frame of the page. What goes unsaid. What goes unseen. The elevation of objects flying under the radar to the forefront of imagination.

In this way, artists act as the shepherds of our collective unconscious, cajoling liminal ideas into the arena of global visibility.

Tony Albert, a Girramay artist from Townsville, Queensland, Australia, uses his talent to call our attention to the questionable construction of difference—the shifting line against which we judge the insider and outsider.

It’s a subject we can’t afford to ignore, as Albert’s success testifies. Well-represented in exhibitions and collections throughout his native Australia, he won both the $100,000 Basil Sellers Art Prize and the prestigious $50,000 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2014.

C-VILLE Weekly caught up with Albert by e-mail prior to the opening of his exhibition, “Brothers,” at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection through August 9.

C-VILLE Weekly: Please tell us a bit about your work.

Tony Albert: As an artist I am very interested in the retelling of history and in giving a voice to those whom history has, and continues, to silence. I consider my work to be conceptually based, meaning I pick the best media to express my ideas. I work across photography, installation video, and “Aboriginalia”—a term I coined to describe kitsch Australiana with representations of Aboriginal people.

How did you come to be making political art?

I’m often asked about the politics in my work, particularly in relation to my cultural identity and how I define my art and life practice. I am undeniably political. Unfortunately, political art has a bad reputation for being overly didactic. Sometimes, also, by labeling the artwork “political,” it negates the fact that you have to talk deeply about the “political” content because its message is so clearly evident. I always try to balance the undoubted political nature of my message with an aesthetic to which contemporary art audiences can respond. I don’t wish to tell the viewer exactly how to think; rather, I want to engage him or her in a conversation, or plant a seed for thought.

What is “Brothers,” and what inspired you to create it?

“Brothers” is a series of photographic works that respond to the ongoing violence and brutality inflicted upon people of color. Shortly after relocating to Sydney in 2012 an incident occurred where police officers shot and wounded two Aboriginal teenagers who were joyriding in the city. Given our very strict gun control laws, incidents involving firearms in Australia are quite rare, even when police are involved. Whilst it was argued that the teenagers were doing the wrong thing, the excessive use of force by the police officers was never called into question. The local community was deeply angered by the situation and protests broke out spontaneously. At one of them, a number of young Aboriginal men had drawn targets over their chests. It reinforced my thoughts that as a black man, I am, we are, walking targets.

How did you choose the subjects?

The young men depicted in the photographs are all from the Kirinari Hostel—a suburban boarding facility that houses teenagers from regional communities while they attend high school in the city. The hostel is in Cronulla, a suburb in Sydney’s south. What’s interesting about the location of this hostel is that Cronulla is widely considered to be the heartland of racist, white, middle class Australia. So much so that in 2005 massive race riots broke out in the area after being instigated by the white community.

What are some of the symbols of power that you’ve layered onto these images, and why did you choose them?

I remember the Australian Prime Minister recently talking publicly about Aboriginal children cleaning up the sidewalks as a means of employment. I thought “Wow. He’s really encouraging us to reach for the stars.” I wish he had said that he believes an Aboriginal person should be the next leader of this country or that Aboriginal people should be encouraged to pursue their dreams —be superheroes, make a change. Whilst Superman can fly, a super power can also be as simple as helping other people or being kind to one another. The images and symbols I use in this work are indeed symbols of power. I want our people to feel empowered and to be portrayed as they truly are—strong, resilient, capable and proud people.

Why is “Brothers” important now?

I think the conversation “Brothers” raises has always been important, however what I would say is that right now it is urgent. Not only in Australia, but all over the world, and particularly here in the U.S., where we are witnessing horrific acts of violence being committed against African-Americans.

How do these ideas stem, more broadly, from the human condition itself?

I make art about my life and my family’s life, and the experience I touch on in “Brothers” stems from personal experience. That said, I think it is interesting that a lot of my work speaks to a universal human condition; to me racism and suffering is very much a shared experience. Despite the fact that a lot of my work addresses rather uncomfortable issues, it is always underpinned by a sense of positivity, hope and resilience.

Local poet Judy Longley often feels like she’s drowning in words. After years of letting her poetry consume her, she’s learning how to revel in silence with a new skill set and a new name. Working as Juliet Da Luiso, Longley unleashes her joy and curiosity in highly abstract oil paintings rather than verses or stanzas. She describes her work as an “inner sea of intense color splashing like waves upon the shores of reality.” You can get a feel for her kinetic relationship to brush and canvas at Milli Joe through the end of July.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com.

First Fridays: July 3, 2015

C’Ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “A Vintage Picnic,” featuring earthenware clay jewelry by Jennifer Paxton. 6-8pm.

The Garage 250 N. First St. “guilt,” featuring mixed media works by Louise Dechow. 5-7pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Richard Crozier: New Paintings,” featuring new work by Richard Crozier. 1-5pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “current,” a mixed media installation by Michelle Geiger in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Summer Group Show,” an annual exhibition in a wide array of media by over 100 members of the McGuffey Art Center in the Upper and Lower North and South Hall Galleries. 5:30-7:30pm.

Milli Joe 400 Preston Ave., Ste. 150. An exhibition of oil and acrylic paintings by Juliet Da Luiso. 5-7pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. Photographs from the Spring Street permanent collection by Liza Bishop. 6-8pm.

Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “American Lascaux: Down a Street Never Taken,” featuring photography by Orion Holen. 5pm.

WVTF & Radio IQ Studio Gallery 216 W. Water St. “Play the Radio,” a site-specific installation by Amanda Wagstaff, presented by New City Arts. 5-7pm.

 

OTHER EXHIBITS

City Clay 700 Harris St., Ste. 104. “Comics and Characters,” featuring ceramic sculptures by Tom Elliott and Kathy Doerr, with a reception on July 4, 5:30-7pm.

CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibition in a wide array of media by members of VSA, with a reception on July 10, 5:30-7pm.

Chroma Projects 107 Vincennes Rd. “A Language Must be Found,” featuring paintings by Felicia Lee Brooks and Leigh Anne Chambers, with a reception on July 12, 5-7pm.

Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia 155 Rugby Rd. “Innocence and Experience: Childhood in Art,” “Figure for the Soul, Rotation II,” “What is a Line?” and “The Body in Motion.”

Holladay House 155 W. Main St., Orange. “Just two BozARTists,” featuring photo transfers by Kathy Kuhlmann and watercolor and oil works by Julia Kindred.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Father Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood,” featuring photographs by Zun Lee.

JMRL Northside Library 705 W. Rio Rd. “15th Anniversary Show,” featuring pastel works by the Piedmont Pastelists.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Brothers,” featuring photographs by Tony Albert and “Art in Country,” featuring works on canvas, paper and eucalyptus bark drawn from Kluge-Ruhe’s permanent collection.

Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. “Plain Art with Plein Air,” featuring oil works by Julia Kindred.

Summit Square 501 Oak Ave., Waynesboro. “Newest works,” featuring photography and oil, watercolor and acrylic paintings by the BozART Group in celebration of its 20th anniversary.

PCA Office Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibition of works by Julia Lesnichy, with a reception on July 10, 5:30-7pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “Little Stories,” featuring mixed media works by Christine Stoddard, with a reception on July 10, 5:30-7:30pm.

 

 

As the newest artist-in-residence at Shenandoah National Park, documentary filmmaker Stace Carter sums up his outdoorsy side in one word: “Meh.”

A former Boy Scout, Eagle Scout and decades-long Albemarle resident, Carter says he has “a great appreciation for comfort,” and his interest in this artistic residency comes not with the chance to shoehorn backcountry hikes into an art project but rather to indulge himself in easy access to spectacular natural resources.

“This is a great chance to spend time in a place without which my life would be less,” he says. “The first time I went to Shenandoah, not long after I moved to Charlottesville, I was killing time while looking for a job and decided to head toward the mountains and see what I could find. I headed toward Skyline Drive and was blown away, and since then I’ve visited as often as possible.”

In short, Carter is like many park visitors: content to get lost in little adventures, whether that’s walking a section of the Appalachian Trail or simply wandering around for a few hours.

The everyman approach no doubt appeals to leaders of the Shenandoah National Park Artist-in-Residence Program, which offers artists a chance to live and work in the park for a period of two weeks, then donate original works of art to the park.

In Carter’s case, he’ll create two two-minute videos of the people he meets in the park. “I’m hoping to capture some of the stories from visitors and park staff about how they found the park and what they’ve found in the park,” he says.

Carter will act as a story detective for his residency, living at Skyland Resort and immersing himself in the experience of the Shenandoah wild. Ultimately, his work will live with the National Park Service’s centennial celebratory campaign Find Your Park, which highlights visitor stories from across the country.

To further the goals of this campaign, Carter has been tasked with engaging the public in his work—a process that becomes him. “The park service will give me assistance in exploring,” he says. You wouldn’t think there is a behind-the-scenes to it, but there is a public safety component. I get to work with rangers to find special and relatively off-limits places, and I have no idea what I’m going to find.”

Diving into the unknown with the task of creation is the name of the game for documentary filmmakers like Carter, who got into the business as a music editor “a billion years ago.” He worked as a film writer and producer in the advertising industry, a job that was, as he puts it, “fun and big budget and spiritually unsatisfying.”

Tired of driving to and from Richmond and Washington, D.C. on a daily basis, Carter eventually became a video producer at the Darden School of Business, where he honed his behind-the-camera chops and interview skills.

He also began working with the founders of the Festival of the Photograph, helping the first LOOK3 establish its video production component. Getting to know documentary photographers like Bill Allard and Eugene Richards and see the scope of their work was life-changing.

“I was floored with how much of a story they could tell with one frame,” says Carter. “Bill does Americana and personal community stories, and Eugene does social justice stuff. I saw their work as a combination of the amazing power of art and the adventure of actually going and making it.”

Documentary captured his heart, he says, because “you’ve got to immerse yourself. You can’t just show up, snap pictures and hope you’ve got something good. You’ve got to get to know people and communities, and that takes time. That’s not an easy thing. There’s adventure rolled into the process.”

He began his own exploration in earnest when he began filming a documentary for Darden about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He flew south and spent a week working with the Coast Guard.

“That project taught me the value of expressing big ideas with small stories,” says Carter. “We met a lot of good folks who were tied up in a huge conflict. Most of the people who work the rigs fish commercially on their days off, so getting rid of Gulf drilling didn’t work for them, contrary to everything we heard in the press. Working both industries tends to be a family tradition and runs deep in the blood. It was fascinating and gratifying to find people who had a story that needed to be told and to help them tell it.”

Now he will do the same for the park he loves. “To me, Shenandoah, and the wider national park system, is a big story about our recognition of the profoundly beautiful and meaningful places that still warrant a notion of American Exceptionalism,” he said. “They tie us to the past and remind us of the importance of preserving what this land was, either hundreds or even tens of thousands of years ago.”

His research has revealed an abundance of stories even before he set foot in Skyland. “You can imagine what it must be like to work as a park ranger and know one of these most valued places so well, to have a family history that dates back before the Civilian Conservation Corps, who built this park. Small stories, big lessons.”

Between the friendly insects peering over the Downtown Mall, photography exhibits throughout town and talks with celebrated, prolific photographers, there are plenty of opportunities to make the most of the annual LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. But one of the festival’s most unique experiences can only be had this weekend, when the WORKS exhibition takes over the Pavilion for a night of innovative projections. Friday will showcase modern visual storytelling through social media platforms with incredible shots you won’t believe are from Instagram, while Saturday highlights a wide range of images from photojournalism to fine art.

Friday 6/12 & Saturday 6/13. Prices vary, 9pm. nTelos Wireless Pavilion, 700 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 977-3687.

There are many Charlottesville scenes that belong on a postcard: the grounds of UVA, the rolling fields of Albemarle, the bustle of the Downtown Mall. But, for this year’s photo contest, we wanted to be transported—not just to a place that’s pretty as a picture but to a moment in time. We asked for shots of local scenes, and what rose to the top were those that captured the experience of living in Charlottesville, not simply admiring it. The winners take us from a window watcher on West Main to a sunset ski session on the Blue Ridge Parkway to a Scottsville institution, and instantly transport us to a fleeting scene in our local landscape. Can you picture it?

Honorable mentions:

 

More than 40 photographers sent in over 225 submissions for this year’s photo contest. A $250 gift card to Pro Camera goes to the first place winner (above), second place gets a $100 gift card to Shadwell’s and the third place winner earns a $50 gift card to Cafe Caturra.

One of the telltale signs of summer in Charlottesville is already visible high above the bricks of the Downtown Mall. Strung between trunks and limbs of the willow oaks, larger-than-life animals and insects gaze down at diners and pedestrians as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph.

Images like these appear each June, only to disappear by mid-summer. Work by different nature photographers is selected each year for the TREES exhibition and for a short time, surprising species roam our urban canopy. While, this is perhaps what many locals know best about the festival, it is only a hint at the full schedule of programming that runs June 10-13.

After taking last year off to host LOOKbetween programming for early career photographers, the full festival returns with a slate of artists who highlight its mission to facilitate awareness of critical issues.

“One thing I value about LOOK3 is the organization’s ability to attract the leading voices in photography, and the commitment to give these legendary artists an authentic forum through which to speak at length about their work and philosophy and to exhibit their work without interference from commercial pressures,” says LOOK3 Executive Director Victoria Hindley.

Indeed, LOOK3 attracts photographers and fans from around the world, but secures extensive underwriting in order to offer the vast majority of its programming free of charge. The non-profit organization brings its offerings to the local community, which might not otherwise have a chance to see such extraordinary artistic talent and varied international perspectives. Hindley estimates that LOOK3’s free programs reach around 25,000 people.

The festival’s programs range from traditional gallery exhibitions and artist talks to distinctive events such as the outdoor WORKS photo projections at the Charlottesville nTelos Pavilion and the high-caliber workshops offered to area students and emerging artists. Since its inception, LOOK3 has hosted more than 120 exhibitions and artists’ talks as well as approximately 250 projection events.

This year’s festival co-curators are Kathy Ryan, director of photography at The New York Times Magazine​, and Scott Thode, an independent curator and photo editor. Together, they have selected an assortment of artists for the LOOK3 that is as quirky as it is thought provoking. Each photographer brings a nuanced view of the world to his or her work and each has achieved recognition for contributions to the field. This year’s lineup includes Larry Fink, visual activist Zanele Muholi, sports photographer Walter Iooss, Alec Soth, animal photographer Vincent J. Musi, David Alan Harvey, Monica Haller and her Veterans Book Project, nature photographer Piotr Naskrecki, as well as a presentation by Charlottesville’s own Andrea Douglas, director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

Despite the diverse selection, a common theme runs throughout. “At LOOK3, we have strong roots in photojournalism; there’s always been an active voice speaking to human rights and social activist concerns,” says Hindley. Indeed, two photographers, Monica Haller and Zanele Muholi, stand apart in this regard, each using their photographic practice to explore and question social and political issues in the world.

Veterans Book Project

Though Monica Haller is a photographer, the images she’s presenting at LOOK3 are not her own. Haller’s artistic practice lies in methodology and engagement, as evidenced by her Veterans Book Project which will be on display at The Garage, a small art space across from Lee Park. The project is a series of 50 books of photographs, recollections and reflections from veterans of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haller acts as an advocate and organizer of these compilations, leading bookmaking workshops that engage vets and their families in the creative exercise of self-reflection. She estimates that she’s worked with almost 100 soldiers over the course of the project.

Haller’s earlier work, Riley and his story, laid the groundwork for this larger project.

“One of the reasons I started this project was that I felt I needed to know more about what we were doing in Iraq—to Iraqis and to American soldiers. I felt my U.S. citizenship strongly, felt accountable as the country deployed its military… these reasons have changed over the last 10 years since starting this work,” she recalls. Like the larger project it inspired, Riley and his story provided a potent mix of representation and reflection for a veteran named Riley, a way to bring visibility and understanding to his experiences of war. The project also evolved over time.

Originally planning to use her own photographs mixed in with Riley’s, Haller eventually removed her work from the final book in order to allow Riley’s to stand on its own. Her role grew into that of writer, editor and organizer. “I’m trained as a photographer. But instead of photographing myself, I was more curious about the images already made. Thousands of pictures being brought back to U.S. soil—the place where the wars are launched,” she says. “The wars are ‘over there.’ But we have this important material right here. I wanted to dig into that.”

On the cover of the compiled work from Riley and his story, Haller writes, “Art can be a series of acts and challenges… The artist can mobilize information by provoking, listening, imagining, organizing and reorganizing. Right now, I am the artist. I want you to see what this war did to Riley.” She asks us, the audience, to be “tactical readers,” and likewise books are defined as “objects for deployment,” prompts for discussion.

The books in the Veterans Book Project similarly provide visibility for previously underrepresented subjects as well as a mode for discussing those subjects’ experiences and reflecting on how they relate to our own. Images range from photos of medic tents in combat zones to scans of doodles made by soldiers during their deployment. Under Haller’s curatorial guidance, these images combine with written memories from the soldiers to create an immersive experience. By working collaboratively, “I think the mutualism that goes on in community-generated projects like this can be quite strong. We reach somewhere we could not alone—creatively, in discourse, and other ways,” says Haller.

For her collaborations to succeed, Haller demands a marked level of vulnerability from herself and the veterans she works alongside. Each must be willing to engage openly and reflect on his own personal experiences.

“These dozens and dozens of books are curated compilations by her of amateur photographers who are vets. And to put that in their voice, I think, is a really important statement,” remarked LOOK3’s Hindley.

In part because the veterans featured in the project have varied experiences and unique perspectives, Haller’s project doesn’t attempt to prescribe an outcome or advocate for a specific sea change. Rather, the Veterans Book Project seeks to simply make visible the experiences of individuals and the issues they faced related to war. It creates space for making meaning where there was little or none before. It places the power of self-representation in the hands of the individuals while also sharing their personal perspectives with the rest of us. The creation of these books is a way of speaking back to the dominant narratives of war and empowering individuals to be active in representing their own experiences.

Identity politics in South Africa

Zanele Muholi is another LOOK3 artist focused on empowering individuals through representation and awareness of human rights issues. In her work, Muholi explores the identity politics and personal lives of the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex) community in South Africa. Though her first major show in the U.S. is currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum, LOOK3 brings Muholi’s photographs to be exhibited outside as public art, across from the Free Speech Wall.

Growing up in South Africa, Muholi has been an activist for most of her life. After training at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, she began integrating photography into her activism, and vice versa. Indeed, she defines herself as a visual activist rather than a photographer.

Though South Africa legalized same-sex marriages in 2006, discrimination against the country’s LGBTI community has grown—and with it, the frequency of violent hate crimes, ranging from assaults to corrective rapes. Living in South Africa, Muholi is on the front line of these issues. Obviously, her work stands in opposition to this violence, asking the world as well as her own neighbors to see the resilience and nuance—indeed, the shared humanity—of the LGBTI community.

Like Haller’s work with the Veterans Book Project, Muholi’s photographs act as a tool for empowerment. They bring visibility to these issues in order to help community members understand themselves as part of the world and in relation to others. And they do so by balancing a celebration of queer identities with an awareness of their violent oppression. With her subjects gazing directly into the camera—and in turn at us—Muholi’s portraits establish a visual vocabulary for marginalized and queer identities in South Africa. Likewise, her more candid photos of black lesbian weddings create a visual history for a community where that hasn’t existed in the past.

Even before she became a photographer, Muholi was invested in activism and co-founded the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, an organization representing LGBTI rights. More recently, she formed Inkanyiso, a resource encouraging black lesbians in South Africa to represent their lives through media and archival advocacy. And though Muholi asks a lot of her subjects, who risk their own safety by being represented in her work, their images ultimately help challenge accepted ways of living and bring attention to the breadth of the human experience. By sharing these perspectives, Muholi’s photographs create an alternative history where the underrepresented and marginalized are no longer so.

Photography as activism

Muholi and Haller are arguably two of LOOK3’s most overtly activist photographers. However, their political and social activism show primarily in the form of representation. The festival’s other featured artists deal with less political subject matter but are equally provocative in their efforts to bring visibility to social issues and to challenge viewers to question dominant narratives. “I think it is a kind of activism to show us what the mainstream is not. Activism is a way of suggesting alternatives,” says Hindley.

Fulfilling its goal to empower this sort of awareness and reflection, LOOK3 also offers free mentorship and educational opportunities for students and early-career photographers, encouraging critical use of photography to champion social and political change. In the two nights of WORKS photo projections, these themes continue. Even those creatures hanging above the Downtown Mall are carefully orchestrated works of art that seek to bring attention to parts of our world that often fly or crawl past, unseen. Photographed by Piotr Naskrecki—an entomologist at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology—each of these species is at risk or living in endangered ecosystems. Each of these photographs represents a social cause in addition to an engaging image.

When viewed together, festival artists’ work raises awareness of a variety of social causes, but also showcases the potent strength of photography as a medium. Reflecting further on her work on the Veterans Book Project, Haller says, “I heard a writer/activist talk about his experiences in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, Kenya. He talked about representations and identities of poverty, handed out and built up through media and history. And in that context he said, ‘When people are not in charge of their own image, that’s quite problematic… That’s why making images is a political act.’ I believe this statement.”

This is where LOOK3 is truly remarkable: in its ability to empower individuals through photography, to raise awareness of the activism inherent in simply showing our many corners of the world as they actually exist. The Festival does this through the TREES exhibition, but also through its extensive other high-caliber photographs and programs that require nothing of us beyond curiosity and a desire to question the way we see the world.

All LOOK3 exhibitions are now open and will remain on display through the end of June. Artist talks will take place at The Paramount Theater. For a complete schedule and list of venues, or to purchase tickets, please visit look3.org.

Richard Freeman is one of Virginia’s little-known art institutions. His frame shop sat stalwartly on the Corner for most of the last century, after opening under print-loving Paul Victorius’ ownership in the late 1930s. When the ’60s rolled around, Victorius took notice of Freeman, a former naval officer running a small art gallery in the Carytown area of Richmond, and the pair’s partnership flourished. Now, Freeman-Victorius is a family business with new digs on West Main Street, and it finally has room to showcase Freeman’s own work—a set of richly saturated acrylic paintings with the occasional collage thrown in.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com.

First Fridays: June 5, 2015

Albemarle Cabinet Company 309 E. Water St. An exhibit of photography by Jyoti Sackett. 5-7pm.

Bank of America Building 306 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Beats,” featuring photographs by Larry Fink as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. 5:30-7:30pm.

City Clay 700 Harris St., Ste. 104. “Student Show,” featuring works by City Clay students. 5:30-7pm.

C’Ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “A Colorful Touch of Glass,” featuring stained glass art by Michael Crabill. 6-8pm.

Fellini’s #9 200 Market St. “Blue Ridge Art Guild Summer Opening,” featuring oil and acrylic paintings by the Blue Ridge Art Guild. 5:30-7pm.

Former Oculus Space 114 Third St. NE. “Estuary, photographic work by Vincent J. Musi as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. 5:30-7:30pm.

Freeman Victorius Gallery 507 W. Main St. “Murmuration of Orbs,” featuring acrylic painting by Richard B. Freeman. 5-8pm.

The Garage 250 N. First St. “Monica Haller & The Veterans Book Project,” featuring photographs by Monica Haller as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. 5:30-7:30pm.

The Haven 112 Market St. “The Sporting Life,” featuring photographs by Walter Iooss as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. 5:30-7:30pm.

Investment Management of Virginia (IMVA) Salon 200 Sixth St. NE. “Ann Lyne: Highlights in Gesture & Line,” featuring paintings and drawings by Ann Lyne, presented by Les Yeux du Monde. 5-7pm.

Jefferson Madison Regional Central Library 201 E. Market St. “Works by Blue Ridge Young Birders Club,” featuring color photographs by various young local birders. 5:30-7pm.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Father Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood,” featuring photographs by Zun Lee. Artist talk and reception, 6pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Russ Warren: Zaragoza,” featuring triptychs by Russ Warren. 1-5pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “No Filter,” featuring photographs by David Alan Harvey as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. 5:30-7:30pm.

Milli Joe Coffee 400 Preston Ave. An exhibition of pen and ink, and acrylic prints by Jack Graves III. 4-6pm.

WVTF & Radio IQ Studio Gallery 216 W. Water St. “Landscape and Weather,” featuring photographs by Elise Sokolowski, presented by New City Arts. 5-7pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. “Songbook,” featuring photographs by Alec Soth as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. 6-7:30pm with a talk by LOOK3 at 6:30pm.

Southern Cities Studio 214 W. Water St. “American Dream: Greta Pratt and Gordon Stettinius,” featuring a photographic essay interpreting the promotion of patriotic attitudes involving both corporate and personal backgrounds, presented in conjunction with Chroma Projects Laboratory. 5:30-7:30pm.

Tavola 826 Hinton Ave. An exhibit featuring the steel sculpture of Lily Erb. 6-8pm.

Warm Springs Gallery 103 Third St. NE. “Pictures of the Year International,” featuring photographs as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph.

OTHER EXHIBITS

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “American Skin,” featuring work by Nym Pedersen, with a reception on June 13, 4-6pm.

Beck Cohen Building 215 Avon St., 3rd floor “Kool Show: An installation uniting photography and sculpture,” featuring works by Zachary Concepcion and Theo Mullen, with a reception on June 12, 6-9pm.

Champion Brewing Company 324 Sixth St. SE “Moonlight Silhouettes,” featuring photographs by Rich Tarbell.

Derriere de Soie 105 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Immersed: Fear and Struggle,” featuring photographs by Meredith Coe, with a reception on June 11, 5:30-8:30pm.

Downtown Mall East Main Street. “The Smaller Majority,” featuring large-scale photographs by entomologist Piotr Naskrecki, suspended high in the trees, as part of the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph.

Focus Contemporary Art 385 Valley St., Scottsville. An exhibit of new work by Robert Strini, through June 13.

Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia 155 Rugby Rd. “Figures for the Soul, Rotation II” and “Innocence and Experience: Childhood in Art”

Freedom of Speech Monument East Main Street, Downtown Mall. “Love, Life, and Loss,” featuring photographs about black LGBY visibility by Zanele Muholi, as part of the 2015 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph.

Hot Cakes 1137 Emmet St. N. Works by Roni Toporovski until June 13. Works by Laura Richards after June 14.

JMRL Northside Library 705 W. Rio Rd. “Visible Poems,” featuring new collages by Karen Whitehill.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Brothers,” featuring photographs by Tony Albert and “Art in Country,” featuring works on canvas, paper and eucalyptus bark drawn from Kluge-Ruhe’s permanent collection.

Lynne Goldman Elements 407 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Gardens at First Light,” featuring photographs by Stacy Bass.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E Main St., Downtown Mall. “Considering Adoption,” featuring photographs by Mary Motley Kalergis.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Aerials Across America,” featuring mixed media works by Remmi Franklin.

Summit Square Retirement Center 501 Oak Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibit of paintings by nine members of the BozART Group.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. An exhibit featuring the oil paintings of Randy Baskerville.

University of Virginia Hospital Main Atrium “Merging the Art and Science of Photography,” featuring photographs by James A. Marshall.