Moving off the Grid ~ Lucas Foglia

I went to several art openings last Friday night in Chicago. The David Weinberg gallery (which I sadly learned will be closing it's doors in March 2011) had a wonderful exhibition of the Yale University School of Art 2010 MFA Photography Candidates. I don't know what it is about that school but they turn out some extraordinary artists, one if which is Lucas Foglia.

Patrick and Anakeesta, Tennessee 2007

I saw this breathtaking photograph which I find incredibly beautiful and disturbing. I could spend hours contemplating it's meaning. I returned home that night and opened my latest Aperture Magazine and not surprisingly, Foglia's work was featured. With all that is going on in the world today, one does wonder what it would be like to live "off the grid."

Foglia's artist statment...

"Since 2006 I have traveled throughout the southeastern United States, befriending, photographing, and interviewing a network of people who left cities and suburbs to live off the grid. Motivated by environmental concerns, religious beliefs, or predictions of economic collapse, my subjects build their homes from local materials, obtain their water from nearby springs, and hunt, gather, or grow their own food.

All the people in my photographs are working to maintain a self-sufficient lifestyle, but no one I found lives in complete isolation from the mainstream. Many of my subjects have websites that they update using laptop computers, and cell phones that they charge on car batteries or solar panels. They do not wholly reject the modern world. Instead, they step away from it and choose the parts that they want to bring with them. "


Pixie and Kyd's Duet, Falling Leaves Rendezvous, Georgia 2007

Homeschooling, Tennessee 2008

Bear, Shot by a Neighbor, Kevin's Land, Virginia 2008

Valerie and the Shadow, Tennessee 2008

Andrew and Taurin Drinking Raw Goat's Milk, Tennessee 2009

National Geographic, Wildroots Homestead, North Carolina 2008

Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

Went to a few openings last night in Chicago and feel really inspired. Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison have work at the Catherine Edelman gallery which is totally stunning. They are giving an gallery talk at noon today if you are in the area. Should be really interesting. The work is seamless and so beautifully executed. The title of the show is Beginnings...no wonder I like it so much!

The Source (2004)

Burn Season (2003)

Study for Hi-Rise Planting (1993)

Study for Flight (1993)

Study of Nest (1994)

"Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison began collaborating on photographs shortly after graduate school, when they began constructing and choreographing scenarios about mans affect on the landscape. In these stagings, Robert would dress in a black suit and starched white shirt -- often referred in the press as an Everyman – and interact with the land, creating environmental performances. These surreal images addressed issues about the earth and mankind's responsibility to heal the damage he has done to its landscape. Often acting as earth's protector, healer and communicator, Everyman used low-tech instruments, creating settings more akin to cinema than the family photo album. These ground breaking images can be seen in their first monograph, The Architect's Brother."

You won't want to miss this show.

Taking Stock and Writers Block

Fall has arrived. As I look back over the summer I am overwhelmed with how packed it was, from multiple family visits and the creation and dissemination of Crude Awakening. And tonight I have 2 simultaneous openings, one in Chicago at 310conTEMPORARY Gallery and one in San Francisco at the Corden Potts Gallery. There is much coming up...but in the mean time, my glasses broke, my car is in need of repairs, there is a water leak in the house and my computer keeps reminding me that my start up disc is dangerously full. There is much to take care of.

What I hope for this coming fall is to focus on my teaching engagements, for which I am so delighted and honored to be involved in. I have my critique group starting up this week and several speaking and workshop commitments. I also spent this past week in the North Woods of Wisconsin cutting out 1000 monarch butterflies that will be part of an installation that I am working on for the Frontera Grill space. I would love to post some pix but am too nervous to download anything more on to this computer. I am having a 2TB internal drive installed on my computer tomorrow. Once that happens, I will be sailing!

Whew! I finally posted. Hope everyone is well.

Collect.give

Collect.give is the brilliant creation of Kevin J. Miyazaki, a Milwaukee-based editorial and fine art photographer. I found out about the project after reading a very compelling article in May in the NYT by Nicholas Kristof, Celebrate : Save the Mother. I began thinking about how I could use my photography to raise awareness for women around the world. I reached out to Aline Smithson, an amazing photographer and networker, to see if she would be interested. She directed me to Collect.give. A program was already in place. I realized I did not need to reinvent the wheel and was happily invited to be one of the contributors.



As of September 1st, the Wedding Portrait will be for sale in a very limited edition of 25, 7" x 10.5" archival pigment prints for $40.00 a print. A steal!!!! AND what is really great is all the $ will be donated to The Lower Ninth Ward Village, an amazing organization run by amazing people. This image is included in my book, Look and Leave : Photographs and Stories from New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward.

I do hope you will consider purchasing a print. They are all ready to be shipped. Just go onto the Collect.give site to order. It is that easy!

Rewriting the Artist Statement

The act if creating is ever evolving. I started The Burn series 3 years ago. The artist statement written a while back felt lacking because there was a subtext to the work that I was not sharing. Time has passed and there is more clarity on how and why I made the work. Having a solo show opening next week in San Francisco at the Corden Potts Gallery has encouraged me to reevaluate the artist statement. I have been reworking the statement for the past week and think I have finally arrived at what, exactly, I want to say.

Burn No. 49

Here it is....

"While accompanying restoration ecologists on prescribed prairie burns, I am drawn to the ephemeral quality of the single moment when life and death are not opposites, but rather parts of a single process to be embraced as a whole.

As fate would have it, this project began on the same day (and actual hour) of my sister’s first chemotherapy treatment, having just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The parallels between the burn and chemotherapy were immediately revealed to me as I photographed with my sister in my heart and mind.

Burning helps reduce invasive vegetation that crowd out native plants, allowing sunlight to reach the seedlings. By opening the woodlands to more daylight, the fires prepare the soil for new spring growth, and the cycle of renewal continues. So too, chemotherapy removes unwanted growth, allowing for new healthy cells to reestablish themselves. It was with this deeper understanding of the life cycle that these images were created."

Burn No. 45, included in the group juried show, "Fantastic Landscapes," gallery 310 conTEMPORARY @ 310 S. Michigan, Chicago, August 2nd - September 30, Reception, September 9th from 5-8pm.

Along the subject of cancer, I have another "body" of work on breast cancer that a fellow artist commissioned me to create. It can be seen HERE but is not for the faint hearted.

There is also a wonderful group of women who created Recovery On Water (ROW), a mutually-empowering rowing team that gives survivors of breast cancer the unique opportunity to interact, become active in their recovery, and gain support from fellow survivors. They are having a fund raiser in the Chicago area September 11th. Click HERE for more information.

from TERRA ECO in France

Mark Strand Poem and Pix

You there;

Come with me into
the world of light
and be whole,

For the love you thought had been
dead a thousand years

Is back in town
and asking for you.

Mark Strand

(taken last year in Tampa, Florida)