Anita Ross, [BA/64, BA(Hons)/65, MA/66, PhD/72] recently donated a painted bronze sculpture by artist and UM alum Joe Fafard [BFA/66, LLD/07] to the University of Manitoba. The piece, called TLC, is o…
Fafard bison sculpture joins the herd
What does it mean to be a ‘recovering photographer’?
Over two decades, Nancy Friedland built her career in art as a photographer. She was represented by a respected Toronto gallerist, she won grants and her work attracted collectors. Then, suddenly, she found she couldn’t take another picture — not as art, at least.
Her photography was always “clever” and conceptual, she says, like a traditional portrait series where potted plants assumed the role of the sitter. But when Friedland embarked on a rather personal, and therefore, uncharacteristic photo project about her family — positioning them as the stars of her own sky — something shifted inside of her.
“It just felt so much better to say something directly than the wink and nudge of my earlier practice,” she says. “Once I found that genuine connection with my work, I just wanted to take it even further … [Photography] was like a completed journey.”
She had the feeling — both inexplicable and undeniable — that she could connect with her art more strongly still if she could only involve her hands more. So 2016’s Constellations became her final photographic series. After that, she picked up a brush for the first time in her adult life and began painting.
Today, the 53-year-old artist playfully calls herself a “recovering photographer.” She still paints like one: with a shutterbug’s special reverence for light, shadow and the optical eccentricities of the lens. But away from the tech- and technique-obsessed machismo of the camera world, which always made her a little insecure, she’s found in paint a medium that enables her to express herself more truly and deeply, while still allowing for the magic of surprise.
Although second chapters, such as this one, are not uncommon in an artist’s career, what’s indeed rare is that Friedland the painter is finding a much wider success than she ever did before. In the past year, her artwork has appeared in international exhibitions, accompanying new fiction by Joyce Carol Oates in the pages of Harper’s Magazine and on the cover of The New York Review of Books. Just last week, a solo exhibition of Friedland’s work, titled Heavy Weather, opened at La Loma Projects in Los Angeles with 20 new paintings. It’s as if the moment she finally found her flow, the world came to meet her.
Friedland calls her initial departure into painting “a bit of a midlife crisis.” She was 47, with teenagers at home who were newly joining social media, and “at the age,” the artist says, “of being embarrassed by everything they do.” She wanted to teach them it’s OK to appear vulnerable in front of your peers, so she decided she’d learn to paint — something she’d always wanted to try — and document the process on Instagram from its shaky beginnings.
But after a few lessons with Toronto painter Roberta McNaughton, which freed the artist from some old misgivings about her skills as a draftsperson, Friedland’s experiment as a role model grew into something much greater. “I was completely hooked,” she says.
She was deeply satisfied with the feeling of making something by hand — and she surprised herself with her knack for it. “It’s like that dream you have that your house has this room you never knew about,” Friedland says. “Or [it’s as if] you’re a right-handed tennis player, then one day, you discover you’re actually a left-handed tennis player … I just discovered this whole part of my brain that I couldn’t access for 25 years.” To this day, she still experiences a sort of “neophyte joy,” she says, in her ability to communicate an idea with just a few strokes of paint.
Although her tools may have changed, Friedland hasn’t completely left the camera behind. In fact, it’s still integral to her artmaking. About three-quarters of the artist’s paintings begin as photographs. She’s enthralled with the idea of translating the medium’s idiosyncrasies, like lens flares and flash lighting, into paint. She’s also interested in exploring the way photography make us feel, with its deep psychological connections to memory, time and our personal narratives.
Then, there are the things she’s found she can do with paint that she never could with photography. It may sound like a paradox, but she feels painting actually enables her to be a better observer. “I see better with a paintbrush in my hand than I ever did with a camera around my neck,” she says. She can pay better attention, especially to what’s happening in the dark. She’s able to sweeten the dance between light and shadow, to choreograph it in a way that evokes mood and feeling to tell a human story.
This is perhaps the root of her artistic inquiry, and it has been the obsession of photographers and painters alike for the history of either medium: How can the basic visual elements of light and dark combine to make meaning?
“I started thinking about painting darkness, and painting little spots of light in the darkness,” Friedland says, “using that obvious metaphor for depression and trying to find those little spots of joy that we have to feel, that we have to try to find, no matter how bleak the world might seem.”
The artist’s answer lies in her paintings — but also in painting itself.
“I can go into the studio and it’s like a map toward feeling some sense of order or calm that I can produce for myself.”
Flow: New Oregon Law Photography Exhibit Runs Now Through July 1
first environmental law clinic in the United States, Oregon Law’s Environmental and Natural Resources (ENR) Law Center continuously strives to find better approaches to tackle environmental issues.
what might be protected by the real-world impact of ENR polices and reform in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest, Oregon Law is currently housing an exhibit of 27 big, bold metal prints by professional landscape photographer Mike Putnam that explore Oregon’s freshwater and waterways.
Aptly titled “Flow,” the collection is currently on view at the Oregon Law Gallery on the second-floor atrium of the Knight Law Center through July 1 from 9am to 8pm daily.
Designed to take viewers on a vibrant journey through a stunning array of rivers, lakes, streams, and waterfalls unequaled outside of Oregon, Putnam explains the inspiration for Flow, “When truly pressed about what makes Oregon more wondrous than other states, I always return to water. Specifically, fresh water. Despite a dry summertime climate in most of our state, these waters evolve, shift, narrow, expand, and most importantly, they nourish. They are our lifeline. Without them, our beautiful state would be barren.”
Based out of Bend, Putnam frequently displays his landscape photography throughout Central Oregon. However, his fine art prints can be found in countless corporate and private collections across the United States. To view a current list of landscape photography exhibits, please visit his website.
‘Action/Abstraction Redefined’: A first look at AMFA’s new exhibition of modern Native American art
Brian ChilsonJust as Indigenous scholars like Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) — author of the 2023 National Book Award-winning “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History” — are reconfiguring American history “outside the tropes of discovery,” dominant, often Eurocentric narratives within art history are being rightfully challenged.
Take “Action/Abstraction Redefined: Modern Native Art, 1940s to 1970s,” for example, which opened at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts on Friday. Originating at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the exhibition “features Indigenous artists who made significant yet often overlooked contributions to both abstract expressionism and modern Native American art,” in the words of IAIA chief curator Manuela Well-Off-Man, who spoke to the Arkansas Times via email.
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Spoiler alert: It wasn’t a bunch of white guys who invented abstraction, and modernism — an umbrella term for a period of artistic rule-breaking that occurred in the context of devastating and abrupt societal change between industrialization and the world wars — didn’t emerge in a cultural vacuum. Abstraction has a longstanding presence within the visual languages of Indigenous cultures, and many of the brilliant artistic innovations associated with the origins of modernism in Europe occurred within a rapidly increasing confluence of cultures, wherein European avant-garde artists like Édouard Manet and Pablo Picasso would have encountered and been respectively influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints and masks from the Dan region of Africa. The list goes on.
Closer to home, when the perceived capital of the art world was displaced from Paris to New York in the aftermath of the Second World War, the New York School and abstract expressionism became a focal point of innovation. “While New York School artists freely borrowed from Indigenous cultures for their abstract art, Native artists in ‘Action/Abstraction Redefined’ didn’t have to look far,” Well-Off-Man said. “They drew on their lived experiences and cultural traditions to create these powerful and often personal works.”
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Brian Chilson“Action/Abstraction Redefined” features 36 artists and over 50 works of art from IAIA’s permanent collection across the movements of abstract expressionism, color field and hard-edge painting, showing how Native artists culled inspiration from traditional designs found on Indigenous pottery, petroglyphs, basketry, textiles and rawhide containers called parfleches while co-creating and responding to new waves of artistic expression.
An underlying current of the exhibition is the innovative pedagogy that took place at IAIA as a counterweight to the forced assimilation and cultural erasure many Native American students experienced elsewhere. Further context from Blackhawk’s “Rediscovery of America” provides jarring statistics: By the 1920s, 40 percent of Native American children had been forcibly removed from their families and relocated in government-sponsored boarding schools where they were instrumentally divorced from their native language and forms of cultural expression.
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Brian ChilsonLinda Lomaheftawa (Dawavenka; Hopi/Choctaw) was one of the first students enrolled in IAIA, which opened its doors in 1962. In the first room of the “Action/Abstraction” exhibition, her atmospheric painting titled “The Quiet Land, the Warm Land” invites lingering contemplation on a spatially ambiguous field of smoky, warm tones with thick drips of light paint protruding from the surface of the canvas like relief sculpture.
“Trail of Tears,” a large monochrome painting by T.C. Cannon (Tommy Wayne; Caddo/Kiowa), is a striking confrontation with slashes of black and grey paint without visual respite or escape. During his studies at IAIA, Cannon was a student of Fritz Scholder (Luiseño) and became later known for a highly chromatic pop art-infused style that challenged stereotypes with a sophisticated scope of imagery. A quote by the artist marks the wall overhead: “I dream of a great breadth of Indian art that ranges through the whole region of our past, present, and future.”
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Brian ChilsonScholder’s color field paintings “New Mexico #21” and “New Mexico #40” are also featured in the exhibition, and utilize powerful earthy reds that are often seen in the searing backgrounds of his later figurative work. Like Cannon, Scholder’s remarkable use of color and striking imagery broke stereotypes about the tropes of Native American art. Fascinatingly, the exhibition catalogue for “Action/Abstraction” notes that Mark Rothko, who has long been synonymous with color field painting, took his signature format from Native American art he observed in Santa Fe.
“White Environ VI,” an arrestingly bright painting by George Morrison (Wah Wah Teh Go Nay Ga Bo, Standing In the Northern Lights; Chippewa) incised with organic shapes and flecks of warm hues hangs next to “White Painting No. 1,” an impasto feast of color. Morrison exhibited with abstract expressionists Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s, co-influencing both the New York School artists and the future trajectories of Native American art.
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“As Native artists such as George Morrison gravitated toward New York, the exposure to avant-garde art gave them a new freedom of expression and liberated them from the expectations of the conservative Native art market and museums,” Well-Off-Man said. “Without these artists’ willingness to take risks and experiment with new art processes, the high level of diversity in contemporary Native art could not have happened.”
Brian ChilsonThe exhibition culminates with hard edge color, which is used directionally in Harvey Herman’s (Sioux) triptych “Geometric #4,” where brash bands of pigment angle toward — or from, depending on how you might see it — a single centered line, bringing to mind urgency, harmony and even a quickening of life force.
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Catherine Walworth, the Jackye and Curtis Finch Jr. curator of drawings at AMFA, remarked that the exhibition offers a new way of understanding both the evolutions of Native American art and its place in conversations about modern art movements.
“The exhibition reminds us that, for those artists like Jackson Pollock who were drawing inspiration from Native American art, there has always been…a long history of abstract design. On the flip side, Native artists in ‘Action/Abstraction Redefined’ bring a totally unique visual and even conceptual perspective to postwar abstract art movements coming out of centers like New York. It’s a breath of fresh air to see these unique interpretations of familiar styles,” Walworth said. “Risk-takers at IAIA defied Native American art styles that, for some, had become stereotypical or static, and eventually new categories would be established at Indian art exhibitions to accommodate new trends.”
In organizing AMFA’s iteration of the exhibition, Walworth considered how featured works could be in conversation with the museum’s permanent collection.
“The painting styles the exhibition’s curators used to categorize works ‘Action/Abstraction Redefined’ may not be familiar to everyone, so we installed a large screenprint on Masonite by Richard Anuszkiewicz — ‘Triangulated Green #24’ — alongside Elaine de Kooning’s gestural ‘Standing Bull’ in one of our permanent collection galleries to give visitors a broader sense of both hard-edge and action painting,” Walworth said. “I also pulled out two small works on paper by the so-called Indian Space Painters Will Barnet and Steve Wheeler that illustrate their indebtedness to Native art. … And then we have contemporary examples that show the ongoing trajectory of Native American art, including Kay WalkingStick’s charcoal drawing ‘Blame the Mountains,’ Dawn Walden’s ‘What is the Point’ — woven from cedar bark, cedar roots, black ash and sweetgrass — and Raven Halfmoon’s ceramic sculpture ‘Do You Practice Your Culture?’”
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Brian ChilsonIn “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History,” Blackhawk notes the need for “multiracial histories,” stating “if the existing paradigms of U.S. history have been maintained by excluding Indigenous people, historicizing the agency of Indigenous peoples offers vital ways to remake those paradigms.” I recommend contemplating the paradigm shift in the company of a work by Lomeheftawa or Morrison. Meanwhile, I’ll be reflecting on how artistic expression that Western culture calls “avant-garde” — which roughly translates to “ahead of its time” — has been inspired by long-standing Indigenous modes of making.
“Action/Abstraction Redefined: Modern Native Art, 1940s to 1970s” is on display at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts until Sunday, May 26.
Photographers Marie Tartar and Steve Eilenberg present ‘Wonders of the Underwater World’
Stowaways by Marie Tartar (Courtesy/ Sedona Camera Club)
Join the Sedona Camera Club for two presentations by professional-level fine art photographers Marie Tartar and Steve Eilenberg. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 26 at the Christ Lutheran Church, 25 Chapel Road. Doors open at 6 p.m.
Take a virtual dive into the ocean with Marie and Steve, who specialize in capturing the colors, behaviors and amazing life during their presentation ‘Wonders of the Underwater World’.
After a break, they will present ‘Eclipse 2024’. The total solar eclipse on April 8 in Texas will be their 4th total solar eclipse to photograph. They will discuss their techniques and lessons learned along the way.
Presentations are free to members. There is a $5 fee for guests. Local photographers are encouraged to join to support bringing high-quality speakers to promote interest in photography and develop photographic skills. Visit SedonaCamera.Club to obtain more information about the club. Membership is $35/year.
Inside Our Corp-Core Shoot with the Stylist and Photographer
When translating our take on corp-core, an intriguing mix of daywear and corporate tropes, we called on photographer Alex Frank and stylist Alexa J King to interpret the concept visually. They crept down into the depths of the subway at 7 a.m. during fashion week to juxtapose the luxurious clothes of Givenchy, McQueen, and Celine with the gritty underworld of corporate Manhattan commutes. Ahead, they break down the happenings of the shoot along with their take on the trend.
Givenchy Hourglass Coat, $4,600, Givenchy Raven Slingback Pump, $995, Givenchy Pearling Silvery Crystal Earrings, $570; Givenchy.com
CELINE by Hedi Slimane: Tommy Jacket in Checked Cashmere , $4,350 USD, Cambridge Shirt in Striped Chambray Cotton, $1,300 USD, Marco Jeans in Soft Lambskin, $3,250 USD, Medium Victoire Bag in Supple Calfskin, $3,850 USD, CELINE Jogger Low Lace-Up Sneaker in Calfskin & Suede Calfskin, $870 USD; Vehla Eyewear Sunglasses; Simplicite Earrings
How was the day of the shoot?
Alex Frank: “It was fashion week, and our call time was 7 a.m. partially because it was on the subway, so I wanted to try and avoid crowds as much as possible. It was a Sunday morning, so we hoped the earlier, the better. And also, our makeup artist had gigs in the afternoon, but he was so busy he accidentally forgot to plug his phone in and didn’t make it. So, we had the model do her own makeup. I ran across the street to Target and swatched lipsticks on my hand. But it worked out because the makeup look we wanted to do anyway was a no-makeup makeup look and a bold lip. We wanted to stay true to the workwear vibe; not many people are wearing full beats to the office. We always wanted to do a wet look. She has a really great bob, so we had her do the slicked-back look for the first few looks and then a messy bun like she’d had a long day and just threw it up in a hair tie for the last look.
“Other than that little hiccup, it honestly turned out perfectly. I live near Union Square, so we used my apartment as a home base and just shot around the subway here. We used Astor Place because I love the subway entrance right there, and then shot down in the subway right here at Union Square. It was kind of empty. We waited for the 6 to come for 15 minutes, but we finally got our shots. I’ve worked with Niamh a few times back in Michigan because that’s where she was based. And Alexa and I have worked together for three years. So it was a very fun, natural crew and a smooth shoot day.
Alex, in terms of composition, how did you want to frame these shots to convey the theme?
AF: “Actually, we shot them backward from how we [initially] thought, because we really loved the Givenchy look. We wanted it to have a moody vibe, so that would surely need the depth of the subway, right in front of the subway car. We shot that first to avoid crowds. The second shot we did was the cutout McQueen suit. We found some red notes on one of the ticketing machines to match the top that Alexa had styled with it and did that as more of an entering-the-subway moment—her in-between full edgy look and casual look. The last one we did was the Celine look out on the streets, which we wanted to be more natural light and carefree, hence the messy bun and some of the smiley shots running through the streets. That smiling shot, there was a pigeon that flew right in front of her. That was completely candid, and she was freaking out that the pigeon had only almost attacked her. But it turned out cute. So New York.
CELINE by Hedi Slimane: Tommy Jacket in Checked Cashmere , $4,350 USD, Cambridge Shirt in Striped Chambray Cotton, $1,300 USD, Marco Jeans in Soft Lambskin, $3,250 USD, Medium Victoire Bag in Supple Calfskin, $3,850 USD, CELINE Jogger Low Lace-Up Sneaker in Calfskin & Suede Calfskin, $870 USD; Vehla Eyewear Sunglasses; Simplicite Earrings
I know we gave you the brief but what was your approach to styling this corporate mix with a daywear aesthetic?
Alexa J King: “I felt like the Givenchy look was the typical power woman going to work; she’s the boss. I loved that look with the heel. It was so chic, all black. And then, moving into the McQueen look, I felt like this is our girl who has more fun in her dressing from day to day. Maybe she’s not working her corporate job; maybe she’s doing something else. I personally love Christopher John Rogers, the designer behind the ruffle top. Then she paired it with a loafer, which I love because, realistically, not every woman’s wearing a heel to work. The Celine look gave me very much a casual Friday— she had a night out on Thursday and is now running to the office. She’s still killing it but cannot think about a full outfit, so she’s throwing on jeans, a button-up, and a blazer.”
What’s your take on this trend? Would you wear it yourself or just something fun to shoot?
AF: “When I was in my office days, I would probably be leaning towards the Celine didn’t-have-time vibe—to throw on some jeans,a loafer, and a blazer. That was always my vibe. But obviously, for the sake of fashion and photography, I probably lean more towards the Givenchy. Look, I love an edgy, dark moment.
AJK: “I’m an office girly, so I see myself in all three. I feel like the Givenchy look is perfect for an event or if you’re really trying to impress a client. The Christopher John Rodgers and McQueen looks, I feel like would be my go-to for the everyday. The Celine is perfect for working from home. I, personally, shockingly don’t wear sweatpants when I work from home.”
AK: “I’m wearing them right now.”
AJK: “I’m basically the opposite of Alex. No, I’m kidding.”
AK: “Alexa is known for slaying an office look, so that’s why she was perfect for this.”
Local photographer highlights shelter animals for adoption
Shayna Hiltebeitel, a photographer with Shayna Michelle Photography, donates her time to do photoshoots with local animal rescues in Southern Illinois. She shares the photos on Facebook in hope some of the shelter residents will find new homes.
She shared some pictures from her Valentine’s Day promotion of pets for adoption at St. Francis CARE in Murphysboro.
Jackie christie and doug christie hi-res stock photography and images – Alamy
Discover the Art of Carving Alabaster at the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center Workshop
Courtesy The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center Saturday, Feb. 24 – Sunday, Feb. 25 at 9 a.m.—WEST RUTLAND—The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center (CSSC), 636 Marble Street, West Rutland is holding an upcoming workshop […] Read More
Morristown artist Xiomaro signs UK deal for New York City street photography book
The artist Xiomaro, known for his photography commissioned by Morristown National Historical Park, has signed a contract with Fonthill Media, a leading publisher in England.
Under the worldwide agreement, the artist will author a book of his New York City street photographs set to be released in 2025.
