This year’s Boneyard Arts Festival, my first event as Arts Editor, introduced me to the work of many talented local artists. One of my favorite things that I encountered was quite simple in theory: a photograph of a lemon. Yet, the photograph was vibrant, clear, intricate, refreshing, and above all, memorable. The close-up shot was the work of Fraya Replinger, a photographer born and raised in Urbana. Replinger’s family has long been a part of the C-U art community: her grandfather, Jack Replinger, was a professor of architecture at the University of Illinois from 1950s through the 80s, and built many houses in the community. Her grandmother, Dot, was an art teacher and prolific fiber artist. Although Replinger moved away from C-U for several years, she “felt called back to Champaign-Urbana.”

Since Boneyard, I’ve encountered Replinger’s work at other venues around C-U, and likely you have as well. She had work at Art Around the Block, Crystal Lake Art Fair, and currently has a collaborative billboard up as part of 40 North’s Sky Gallery. Replinger’s work is interesting, and her portfolio is quite diverse: you can tell that she isn’t afraid to try new things. I recently corresponded with Replinger about that lemon photograph, her billboard for Sky Gallery, and more.

Some responses have edited for length and clarity

Smile Politely: How long have you been a photographer? How did you get started?

Replinger: I have been a photographer for as long as I can remember. My father is a photographer and I recall following him with my pink 35mm point-and-shoot camera, taking pictures of flowers, clouds, and people. I contribute my love and passion for photography to him. I also took photography classes in high school and college. Over time, my perspective and style began to crystalize. In 2009 I entered the Champaign County Camera Club Best in Show Competition and participated each year until 2018. Part of the competition is a critique moderated by the judges. I found this incredibly valuable and I applied much of what I learned into my photographic style. Thanks to encouragement from my family and a number of artists I admire, I continued to evolve and began showing my work in 2017.

SP: I first saw your work at Boneyard; you had this incredible close-up photo of a lemon called Citrus, and I felt it was this perfect example of an artist taking something that we see every day and elevating it to this higher level. What inspired you to photograph food in this way? 

Replinger: Each year I take part in the Boneyard Arts Festival, I try to come up with something different — something outside of my usual landscapes and colorful sunsets. Last year I focused on close-up, colorful images of rock formations and printed the images on aluminum. This year I explored macro photography. While shooting landscapes takes me outside of my home and usual daily routine, shooting food and other everyday items reminded me of the energy and delight that can flow from something as simple as a lemon.

SP: I noticed a lot of your work skews either very large scale or very small scale: you photograph wide open landscapes and also have photographs showing the end of a crayon, or a single thin piece of garlic skin. Do you deliberately set up this juxtaposition with your displays? What draws you to each?

Replinger: Shooting macro has opened a new side of my work. The contrast between a wide, expansive landscape and the tiny details of a vegetable demonstrates that there’s beauty everywhere, in big places and in small ones. When I set up my macro shots, the challenge is in planning the shots while leaving room for experimentation. I’m always thinking about color and form. For my garlic pieces, for example, I emphasized the purples of the peel. There’s a whimsical softness to garlic that I discovered and played up through observing and capturing the way the peels reacted to the light. As for my landscapes, it’s all about capturing the right moment. I love to shoot dramatic cloud formations — the challenge with that is that I’m a little weary of thunderstorms. Capturing a scene with the perfect light is also a challenge, and so is maintaining restraint in the post-production process. But each time I go out and explore the world around me with my camera in my hand, I return having learned something new.

SP: Is there a difference with large versus small scale when it comes to planning and experimentation/improvisation? 

Replinger: With my large-scale landscapes, I often have no plan. It’s almost always spontaneous. The weather can change in an instant, especially on those late afternoons in the summer. The small-scale, close-up images are planned set-ups with room to adjust on the fly. As I have grown in my artmaking practice, I’ve realized I approach the work in the same way a painter might. I have my still-life-esq works, shot in my home using what I have around, allowing me to hone my technique and take my time capturing details. I also have my landscapes, each one captured as a plein-air artist would, each click of my shutter a brand-new moment, like brushstrokes. There’s a time for planning and crafting. And there’s also a time to abandon your plan and go where the land and the sky takes you.

SP: You currently have a mural up as part of Sky Gallery. Congratulations! I’ve really enjoyed seeing all of these around town. Yours is a collaborative piece with Greg Stallmeyer. How did that collaboration come about? As you were working on the piece, did you ever envision it on a billboard?

Replinger: Thank you! Greg and I started working on our collaboration in 2019 with the intention of it being displayed in a large format. It began with an image I created of Greg’s welding table and blossomed from there. Working with Greg inspired me to explore abstract photography more.

SP: Do you have more plans for future collaborations? 

Replinger: Greg and I talk often and have ideas, but no solid plans yet. As my friends and family could tell you, I spend much of my time at my shows chatting with other artists, exchanging inspiration and learning more about their processes. I hope to explore more collaborations with my network of art friends in the future.

SP: If you had to choose, which fruit or vegetable do you think is the most interesting to photograph?

Replinger: My current favorite is the kiwi. The vibrant color and the thin, radiating lines make for an energetic image. My first favorite was raw artichoke. An image I created years ago, with the help of my mother, that highlights the rich magenta and fresh green of the heart makes me smile every time I see it.

SP: What are you currently working on?

Replinger: My wheels are always turning. Lately, I have been exploring nostalgia and my own personal images and symbols from childhood and adolescence. I have also started examining old barns and farmhouses around the Champaign-Urbana area. I have several shows coming up and am in a constant flow of preparation for these events.

SP: Is there any place around C-U where people can check out your photography?

Replinger: I am currently showing work at Allerton Park & Retreat Center in the Mansion and in the Greenhouse Café. I am also showing work at Po’Boys in Urbana.

This fall, you can also find Replinger at West Side Arts, Sugar Creek Arts Festival, and the Craft League of Champaign Urbana 40th Annual Art Fair.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Art Gallery will host an exhibition from the internationally renowned husband-and-wife photography team of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison.

Their exhibition, “ParkeHarrison: Earth Elegies,” begins Sept. 11 and ends Oct. 3. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, will be on display in the Brad Cushman Gallery in the Windgate Center of Art and Design.

The ParkeHarrisons will give a presentation on their work from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building. UA Little Rock will hold a reception for the exhibition from 5:30-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29, in the Windgate Center lobby and Brad Cushman Gallery.

“Our photographs offer visual poems of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use,” the ParkeHarrisons said in an artist statement. “As collaborative artists, we strive to metaphorically and poetically link laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals and strangely crude machines into tales about our contemporary experiences. We construct elaborate sets made from found objects. Our scenes combine real and constructed landscapes. These scenes have a sense of determination and irony while addressing mankind’s responsibility to heal the damage inflicted on the environment.”

Robert ParkeHarrison earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kansas City Art Institute and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico. Shana ParkeHarrison earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from William Woods College and completed graduate studies at the University of New Mexico.

Their photographs have been displayed in more than 45 solo exhibitions and more than 100 group shows worldwide. Their work can also be found in over 35 collections, including the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, the George Eastman House, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Their book, “Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison: The Architect’s Brother,” was named as one of the 10 best photography books of the year in 2000 by the New York Times.

The UA Little Rock Art Galleries in the Windgate Center are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Saturday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday.

For more information, contact Nathan Larson, interim art gallery director and curator, at 501-916-5104 or nglarson@ualr.edu.

Poker-straight black hair, trapper hat, black bandana, slouchy jeans, dark sunglasses – seminal American image-maker Steven Meisel’s distinct look is (almost) as recognisable as his photography, which came to define 1990s fashion and cemented the era of the supermodel. 

Coinciding with the arrival of New York Fashion Week – which begins today (Friday 8 2023) with Peter Do’s debut collection for Helmut Lang – Meisel reveals a new collaborative collection with Galicia-based fashion behemoth Zara, which mines both his personal wardrobe and his catalogue of photography, particularly that from the 1990s. Titled ‘Steven Meisel New York’, it also pays homage to the city where he was born – ‘a love letter to the photographer’s hometown’, as the notes describe. 

A first look at Steven Meisel’s collection for Zara

As such, the collection includes Meisel signatures – an oversized black trapper hat, checkered kilt, slouchy leather boots and biker jacket all feature – alongside pieces that capture the spirit of the 1990s, from a grunge-inspired plaid shirt to an oversized striped sweater and baggy denim shirt. Others capture ‘the dreamy realms of his own obsessions’, like a croc-print coat designed to evoke the 1960s, another era that has fascinated the image-maker. 

Elsewhere, T-shirts and sweaters are stamped with ‘Steven Meisel New York’, while smaller accessories include black-rimmed sunglasses, leather cuffs, and an array of jewellery including simple studs and chains in silver that nod to the punk movement. Of the ‘darkly seductive’ collection – much of which is designed for both men and women – Zara says it draws on the same ‘edgy confluence of music and fashion’ that has defined Meisel’s photographic output. 

The project is launched with a series of portraits, photographed by Meisel, of 26 figures who ‘act as different faces’ of the image-maker. Notably, these include his perennial muse Linda Evangelista, alongside Amber Valletta, Liya Kebede, Irina Shayk, Gigi Hadid, Kaia Gerber, Penelope Tree, Eva Herzigova, Alton Mason, Ash Stymest and Scott Barnhill, among others. Meisel worked on the portfolio with perhaps his closest collaborators: stylist Karl Templer, make-up artist Pat McGrath, and hair stylist Guido Palau.

The collection will launch in two dedicated pop-ups, the first running from 9-13 September 2023 at 33 Howard Street, SoHo in New York; the second from 15-17 September 2023 at Dover Street Market London, coinciding with London Fashion Week. 

The collection will launch more widely on September 18 2023 in Zara stores and online. 

The collaboration continues a longstanding partnership between Zara and Meisel, the latter having captured several recent campaigns for the brand. Last year, an exhibition in A Coruña, Spain, ‘Steven Meisel 1993 A Year in Photographs’ – documenting one particularly prolific year in the photographer’s career – was hosted by Marta Ortega, chair of Inditex, the Spanish textile conglomerate which owns Zara.

zara.com

A woman who sued Andy Warhol and won after he used one of her photos has died.

Patricia Caulfield was 91.

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Caulfield was an editor at Modern Photography magazine in the 1960s. She had sued Warhol after he used a photo she had taken of hibiscus blossoms. She had published the image in an article in June of 1964 and the artist had reached out to the magazine, asking to buy the photo, but he didn’t want to pay the price they had said.

Instead, according to Caufiled’s lawsuit filed in 1966, Warhol cut the photo from the magazine, cropped it and made silkscreen paintings of the image to create his “Flowers” series of art. The series was displayed at the Leo Castelli Gallery in Manhattan in November 1964, just months after the photo’s initial publication.

“He didn’t think it would be a big thing, but ‘Flowers’ sold like crazy,” Caulfield’s sister Kathleen Hall told The New York Times.

Caulfield and Warhol settled and part of the agreement was that Warhol would make two new “Flowers” paintings, which eventually sold for $6,000. She also received 25% of the realities from the original “Flowers” prints.

Her suit against Warhol was one of several where photographers sued the artist for using their images to create his work, according to The Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts.

Caulfield eventually left Modern Photography and became a freelance photojournalist, focusing on the environment and wildlife.

“I guess there’s the hope somebody may see my photographs and think, ‘that’s a wonderful animal, maybe it’s worth making an effort to save,’” Caulfield told the Knight-Ridder in 1977, the Times reported. “But at least I’m effective in making a record of something before it all gets ruined.”

Caulfield was born in Chicago on March 17, 1932. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a nurse. She attended the University of Rochester. She started picking up photography after appearing on a television show hosted by the curator of the then-George Eastman House. She moved to San Francisco after graduating in 1953, taking photography courses at night and working at a camera store during the day. Caulfield was eventually hired by Modern Photography in New York as a secretary, but within 11 years had been named executive editor, the Times reported.

In addition to Modern Photography, her photos also appeared in National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian and The American Sportsman publications. She also published several books.

Her library of photographs was recently donated to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Caulfield died at a Manhattan assisted living facility on July 16, the Times reported. She leaves behind her sister.

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High school football photographer Linda Gregory has died after an accident during a game she was covering caused her to hit her head.

Her husband Mel confirmed the sad news after it had been reported that Linda was on life support with “little hope left” after the incident in Kansas on Monday night.

Further details of what happened have come to light during the junior varsity game between Wichita Northwest High School and Bishop Carroll High School.

Two players were engaged in a block that carried on out of bounds where they collided with Linda. The photographer had her camera trained somewhere else on the field and noticed the players coming toward her very late. After she fell backward and hit her head on the concrete apron, the players immediately stopped to help her as the medics were called over within seconds.

Linda’s husband Mel made the decision to to take Linda off life support and move her to Kansas City where her organs will be donated. Mel says that this is what Linda would have wanted and she had requested a do-not-resuscitate order which the family conformed to.

Tributes for Linda have poured in, led by her husband Mel who revealed Linda’s photography enabled her to travel extensively — including to Romania where she was invited to take photos of various sports teams there and was even commissioned to shoot a wedding in the Eastern European country.

The incident highlights the dangers for sports photographers covering not only football but baseball as well. Photographer Tony Morano had to be taken to hospital after an incident during the XFL championship game. And YES cameraman Pete Stendel has only just returned to work after a two-month hiatus after he was struck in the head by a wayward baseball.

“Linda was an amazing person who breathed life into our students here at Northwest,” Northwest Grizzlies football coach Steve Martin says.

“Her passion for kids was amazing, but it went deeper than taking pictures for Linda and Mel. They were a part of our football team and always will be. They are family! She was a mentor and friend to some of our boys, past and present, and they are hurting right now.”

Chennai, India

Indian army training cadets perform ‘Kalaripayattu’, an ancient martial art from Kerala, during a combined display ahead of their graduation ceremony, at the officers’ training academy

Photograph: Idrees Mohammed/EPA