Professor Silberman teaches traditional photography, ranging from 19th Century techniques through large format, at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, according to a release from Elena Kritter, Music & Art Coordinator, Walker Fine Arts.

Silberman said in a statement that for the past three decades she has collected what is known now as “hidden mother” tintypes, dating from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Her new exhibit features haunting, meticulously composed photographs she captured of the tiny vintage metal tintypes, each featuring a baby or small child.

Because the camera exposures to record the portraits were several seconds long, the mother usually is in the image with the baby or child in some capacity, Silberman said. Great lengths were taken to conceal her behind drapery or carpets or by scratching her away in the wet or later dry emulsion.

Long overlooked, this genre of vernacular photography, on par with folk art, is beginning to receive serious scholarly notice, according to Silberman.

“This transformation of the images onto fabric brings the portraits to life by creating a simple illusion: when two translucent layers of identical visual information are slightly offset, our stereoscopic vision will interpret this as drifting in and out of appearing three-dimensional,” she stated.

“The gossamer weight of the crepe (which incidentally is also associated with Victorian mourning clothing since it is lightweight with a dull matte surface) further animates the images with the subtle but constant motion of the fabric.

“One can no longer ‘not see’ the outlines of the hidden mothers in these now life-sized animated drapes/backdrops,” said the artist.

Another focus of Silberman’s Woodberry Forest exhibit, the “Invisible Birds” tintype project is a tribute to the extinct Carolina parakeet, the only native North American parrot. The last one died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918, a little more than 100 years ago, according to the professor.

“One night I had dreamt that there were nocturnal birds with feathers of vantablack, the darkest substance known,” Silberman said. “They couldn’t be seen, so they couldn’t be destroyed; they were adapted to human exploitation by evolving into ‘Invisible Birds.’ This tintype series made use exclusively of expired plates—up to ten years beyond usability.”

The setting for her photos was a cleared plot of land close by her home; this “stump garden” served as the backdrop to handmade cloth backdrops depicting flocks of birds, one fabricated from small effigies and another photographed as an exploding murmuration, Silberman stated.

“The birds in these original backdrops appear and disappear as the fabric blows in the wind, a function of the long exposures required by the tintype process.

“In the most recent incarnation of this project, these plates are now being translated into a new generation of gossamer backdrops and are layered together with the originals, in a potentially infinite cycle of creation and re-creation,” Silberman said.

The photographer specializes in handmade sensitizers, low-tech adaptations, miniatures, optics and illusions, according to the release. Her most recent work rethinks the language, form and content of tintype.

Silberman has received many awards including a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Fellowship, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship and has shown her work throughout the U.S.

She holds an MFA in graphics from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. See rebecca-silberman.com.

Baker Gallery is located in the Walker Fine Arts Center at Woodberry Forest School, located off of James Madison Highway in Madison County.

Public viewing hours for the new exhibit are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.