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CAIRO — Nine-year-old budding astronomer Seth Lynch traveled to Williford, Arkansas, to view the solar eclipse with his dad Jonathan, mom Kendra, and siblings Hannah, Caleb, and Sarah, plus grandmother, uncles, aunts, and cousins: eighteen in all.

Lynch and astronomer Randy Rhea met when he attended a partial eclipse viewing last October at the Pebble Hill Learning Center, and have been in contact since then. Santa brought Lynch a Celestron NexStar 130SLT telescope, and Lynch has been honing his astrophotography skills. He took this photograph of the eclipse at totality while mom followed his instructions on how to track the Sun with the hand controller. Lynch’s mom wrote Rhea: “Seth got after me when I was getting behind. Words, and even pictures, cannot do justice to the beauty and majesty of the experience. The eclipse even tricked the streetlights during totality. One scientist came all the way from Taiwan to view totality.”

Notice the “cloud” around the Sun in Lynch’s photograph. At totality, the Moon covers the entire bright surface of the Sun, and the Sun’s atmosphere (corona) becomes visible. The Sun’s corona is actually much hotter than the solar surface, which is why the corona is white (white hot) rather than yellow. However, the corona is tenuous and therefore dimmer than the Sun’s surface. Coronal material is ejected by the Sun and travels millions of miles into space as it dissipates into the solar wind. It is this solar wind that pushes a comet’s tail away from the Sun. Seth’s photograph also reveals the filamentary nature of the corona.

Photographs of the total eclipse taken with cell phones show the corona. However, Lynch’s photograph also shows solar prominences. Solar prominences are large loops of plasma (atoms and electrons stripped of their bond). Prominences are anchored to the surface but loop around strong magnetic fields, rising hundreds of thousands of miles from the Sun.

Prominences rise above sunspots. Lynch’s photograph of the eclipse before totality shows sunspots. During periods of heavy solar activity, if you have keen eyes, you can see sunspots using only the safety glasses you used for the eclipse. Sunspots appear as very small speckles of black on the Sun. A telescope with a solar filter reveals larger spots in more detail, often in groups.

Before the eclipse, Rhea saw a headline “Your map of the path of totality is wrong, experts say.” This type of half-truth news prevails in media’s click-grabbing coverage of science today. The Sun is a ball of seething gas, so its exact “surface” is somewhat variable. This results in an uncertainty of a few seconds in the length of totality. Turn that idea into the “path is wrong” and media gets more clicks.

Where can you get accurate coverage of astronomy. Right here in the Times-Enterprise, of course. Or ask Lynch.

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The work of photographer Francesca Woodman is having a moment, being the subject of both an exhibition at Gagosian in New York and a must-see museum show at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Though her name is reaching new heights of world renown, the young New York photographer has been a critical darling for decades and her works, produced before her tragically early death in 1981 at the age of just 22, have an enduring sense of style and experimental daring.

This timeless appeal is inevitably foregrounded throughout the impressively original London exhibition, which weaves her works with those of another celebrated historical photographer active a whole century earlier, Julia Margaret Cameron. A careful curatorial eye brings to the fore striking comparisons in which a similar subject matter is approached with mastery, mystery, and invention by the artist, while still very much bearing the essence of their respective eras. Each of these unique talents could, of course, have easily merited an exhibition of their own, yet this pairing does not constrain them.

Born in Calcutta in 1815, Cameron enjoyed a privileged Victorian upbringing due to her father’s involvement with the colonial East India Company. She and her sisters were known to be outspoken and unconventional, but it wasn’t until Cameron moved to London with her husband in 1845 that she became a member of artistic circles.

From left to right: Julia Margaret Cameron, The Dream (Mary Hillier) (1869). Courtesy of the Wilson Centre for Photography. Francesca Woodman, Untitled (1979). Courtesy of the Woodman Family Foundation, © Woodman Family Foundation/DACS London.

Cameron learned about the invention of photography in 1839, while still in her twenties, and first saw a daguerreotype in 1842. Yet she didn’t take up the practice herself until the age of 48, having been given a camera as a present by her daughter. In the last 12 years of Cameron’s life, until her death in 1879, she produced some 900 photographs that evince a highly exploratory approach to the fledgling art form.

Fast forward 100 years and photography had exploded in popularity, replacing writing as the most ubiquitous means of documenting of daily life. Like Cameron, Woodman received her first camera as a gift from her father. She trained formally at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with stints spent in Rome before moving to New York in 1979 to make it as a photographer. Woodman was highly ambitious and quickly became devastated by what she perceived as a lack of immediate success.

From left to right: Julia Margaret Cameron, The South West Wind (1864). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Francesca Woodman, House #3 (1976).Courtesy of the Woodman Family Foundation, © Woodman Family Foundation/DACS London.

The works of both photographers are roughly grouped according to themes of portraiture, otherworldly or dreamlike states, classical references, mythology, and the natural world, all of which reveal interesting affinities and departures in terms of staging, costume, focus, and style. Each artist has such clarity of vision that any differences in what could be achieved technically in their respective centuries feel mostly irrelevant.

Illusionistic effects that push photography beyond the status of a mere record are employed by both, as in the ghostly apparitions that haunt Cameron’s The South West Wind (1864) and Woodman’s House #3 (1976). Both artists seemed to have an instinct for capturing a partial truth and letting ambiguity and the viewer’s imagination fill in the bigger picture.

From left to right: Julia Margaret Cameron, I Wait (Rachel Gurney) (1872). Photo: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Francesca Woodman, Untitled from the “Angels” series (1977). Courtesy of the Woodman Family Foundation, © Woodman Family Foundation/DACS London.

Cameron often photographed close friends and family while Woodman, with a more modern notion of the artist available to her, usually made art using her own body. Either way, each took as a subject what was immediately available to her but imbued it with greater resonance, playing with fantastical elements or mythological allegories. In one nearly supernatural Untitled work from Woodman’s “Angel” series, the artist could almost be said to levitate.

As the National Portrait Gallery’s wall texts point out, angels have long been seen as able “to move between spiritual and earthly realms, the conscious and unconscious, and are often encountered in dreams or visions.”

Cameron’s great-niece Rachel was once instructed to adopt poses inspired by the putti from Renaissance paintings. She later called having “a pair of heavy swan’s wings fastened to her narrow shoulders[…] No wonder those old photographs of us, leaning over imaginary ramparts of heaven, look anxious and wistful. This is how we felt, for we never knew what Aunt Julia was going to do next.”

From left to right: Julia Margaret Cameron, The Astronomer (Sir John Frederick William Herschel) (1867). Courtesy of the RISD Museum, Providence, R.I. Francesca Woodman, These People Live in That Door (1976-77). Courtesy of the Woodman Family Foundation, © Woodman Family Foundation/DACS London.

Sometimes, both Cameron and Woodman made straightforward portraits of the people in their lives. Woodman’s close friend Sloan Rankin and a one-time boyfriend, Benjamin Moore, appear in many photographs from the late 1970s. Alongside fond Pre-Raphaelite studies of muses and friends like Julia Jackson, Cameron turned her lens on some of the most important luminaries of her age like the scientist Charles Darwin, astronomer John Frederick William Herschel, the poet Alfred Tennyson, and the writer William Michael Rossetti. These animated character studies feel astonishingly ahead of their time.

Thinking back on the many double-act shows that had more ambition than bite, rarely does this curatorial conceit deserve to be as self-satisfied as here. How can a kinship be found in the oeuvres of two artists who evolved from such starkly different contexts? Rather than getting too caught up in a specific time or place—Victorian-era London or 1970s New York—the comparison pushes us instead towards more expansive interpretations that show already well-defined practices in a new light.

“Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In” is on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London until June 16, 2024. 

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This title is one that I truly never thought I’d type: but Curator Catherine Futter and the Brooklyn Museum have done what many might deem impossible. They’ve taken the work of someone not considered a traditional photographer and given it the specular highlights it needs to shine. If Paul’s photography were the sun, you wouldn’t mind going blind staring at it. The images are a testament to the pillar of documentary photography that advocates for people skills, access, and being emotionally in tune with what’s around you.

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm will be on display at the Brooklyn Museum until August 18th, 2024. Please visit their website for more information.

Paul McCartney Photographs: The Exhibit

To recap what so many of you know, I’m low-vision (formerly called legally blind, but that definition has changed.) So, if you wear transition lenses, I strongly encourage you to let your glasses adjust to the inside of the Brooklyn Museum. Paul McCartney Photographs takes up the entire floor, and there are no windows on said floor. If you don’t let them adjust, some rooms might seem much darker than they really are. Part of this is due to the lighting and how bold the wall paint is.

Let’s start there: the lighting on the prints is best appreciated with fewer people in the gallery space. At times, you’ll see reflections, but they’re largely kept down to a minimum. To truly appreciate the work with minimal reflections, however, you must sometimes stand far away from the prints. That’s something that can only be done with fewer people in the space. If you’re reading this, keep that in mind.

The Prints

While the prints have their own spotlight, I truly wish that the text had the same care and appreciation given to it. Some of the text is written in bright, contrasting text with copious amounts of light. While at other times, the text seems almost like an afterthought. The experience forces you to move very often throughout the exhibit to really appreciate what’s in front of you.

Indeed, what’s in front of you is a time capsule. These images were shot by Paul over the years as the band toured and went about daily life. Insights are provided into what he shot, why he shot it, and some of the little details in between. There’s a whole section where Paul switches from black and white to color. While doing this, the color images look just as timeless as all the black and white photographs do. And here is where you really want to get close: the details are masterfully printed. You can see things like blemishes on the faces of each individual member of the Beatles — reminding you that these are candid photographs made by a man who had immense trust in them.

This fact, in and of itself, is one of the most important things here. Paul demonstrated that he was a photographer more than capable of capturing emotional moments. But he also had access that many others didn’t. I know several influencers who would probably say things like “I could’ve shot this, why isn’t my work in a museum?” The honest truth is that Paul shot from a place of emotional memory capture — not from a place of pleasing an algorithm.

It speaks to the importance of people skills — something which is truly lacking in much of photography. I adore the fact that the Brooklyn Museum is putting photographers with people skills in the spotlight. Previously, they gave quite a bit of space to Jamel Shabazz. Preceding that, the Museum did an incredible job with Garry Winogrand’s photographs. It’s so important in a world where AI is seeping through the cracks and people are relating photography to an attention-based economy over one based on authenticity.

The Third Sense

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The exhibit is akin to accomplishing what good cinema does — it converses with your eyes and ears. With that said, it misses the stimulation of the third sense, touch — which so many use often in the world of smartphones. The addition of several copies of the book for which this exhibit is named for is missing. Paired with the right lighting, this would’ve made the exhibit all that much better. However, you can pick the book up from Amazon.

Growing up listening to punk rock and currently sporting a mohawk at age 37, I could never get into the Beatles — though I acknowledge their impact on culture and applaud them as artists. Despite this, I can look past that and nod my head to Paul’s photography abilities. If you’re a photographer who does work revolving around people, you should really go see this exhibit.

Brentwood College School students are offering “Fragments” in a photography show in Duncan starting May 5.

The exhibition is their annual student-organized show of photographs that highlight the culmination of senior students’ growth through the photography program, “promising a captivating display of talent and creativity.”

The show’s opening reception will take place on Sunday, May 5, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Just Jakes Restaurant (45 Craig St.) and will remain on display until June 1, providing ample opportunities for art enthusiasts to not only view the creative works captured by these emerging artists, but also to purchase one to take home.

“When attendees purchase student artworks, they are not only taking home a beautiful image to hang, they are also supporting an aspiring artist’s creative journey,’ said a press release for the show.

“Since it first began nearly two decades ago, the Fine Art Photography 12 annual art show has served as an opportunity to display the remarkable talent and growth that is nurtured behind the doors of Brentwood College School’s photography program,” said the release. This year marks the 19th installment of this showcase, underscoring the commitment to fostering artistic expression by both Brentwood, and more specifically, the school’s photography instructor Paul Fletcher.

“I am very pleased with this year’s Grade 12 Fine Art Photography students’ selection of artworks and the effort they have collectively put into this year’s show,” said Fletcher. “I am very thankful to Liz and Lance of Just Jakes Restaurant for all the years my photography students have hosted this show on their premises.”

On Friday, April 19, 20 North Gallery opened “ARToledo 2024,” an exhibition of photography and paintings—in acrylic, oil and ink—by four Toledo-area emerging artists, Austin Lipowski, Vincent Livecchi, Paul Lyon and Yuemin Xin. The exhibit will continue through June 22.

20 North Gallery and the artists will be welcoming friends and collectors at the free Public Reception for “ARToledo 2024” on Friday, April 19, from 6 pm – 9 pm. The reception will feature a free appetizer buffet and cash bar by venue.

Beginning to Now

Since its founding in 1993, 20 North Gallery has periodically hosted emerging artists exhibits, promoting the development of promising new talent in the Toledo art landscape. “ARToledo 2024” is a small group exhibition which provides the opportunity to nurture and retain Toledo’s rising artistic talent, giving new artists a chance to enter the commercial art market in their home community—while providing Toledo collectors the opportunity for a first view of the future of Toledo’s rich, continuing art legacy.

In 2024, the exhibition was designed as a competitive show, open to Ohio and Toledo-area artists who have prepared a body of work, but who have not yet been a featured artist in any commercial gallery venues prior to the ARToledo 2024 exhibit.

This year’s exhibition juror is Aaron Pickens. Pickens received his B.F.A. from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and M.F.A. from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Pickens spent his years as an emerging artist in Toledo, exhibiting in regional shows including “NowOH” at the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery at Bowling Green State University (First Place in 2D Art, 2016; Best of Show, 2017, 2018). Recently, his paintings have been included in national and international juried and invitational shows such as “Surreal Salon 14” at Baton Rouge Gallery (Baton Rouge, Louisiana). Pickens is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and New Media at Indiana University Kokomo (Indiana).

Juror’s Remarks

As the juror and curator for “ARToledo 2024,” Mr. Pickens remarks, “Every time I evaluate an artist’s creative practice, I look at several different parameters. Is the artist technically proficient with their medium? Is there consistency within their body of work? Is there something distinctive about their creative practice? What do they want to communicate to the world through their art? Furthermore, when I curate an exhibition, I am also looking for a possible connection between the different artists. How would their artwork function together and what does it collectively say? The artists that were chosen for the 2024 ARToledo exhibition all demonstrate a strong creative practice and have a clear professional trajectory in the arts. Additionally, the exhibition evolved into having two connecting themes: painting and the landscape.

RELATED: Art Calendar May 2024

“However, despite these two connecting themes, the work is visually diverse. What caught my attention with Austin Lipowski’s abstract paintings is the sophisticated layering of the paint, the gestural mark-making, the use of color, and the dynamic compositions. With Yuemin Xin’s paintings of nature, the mark-making is both expressive, while also immaculately controlled. The work also embodies a reverence for tradition and seeks to preserve a culturally-significant discipline. Vince Livecchi’s photographs magnify subtle details within the natural world. With the extreme depth of field within his images, the compositions oscillate between abstraction and representation. Paul Lyon’s paintings of the landscape explore an impressionistic approach to depicting the Midwest. The energetic application of paint has elevated the familiar.

“Finally, there is an interplay between the macro and micro when viewing the work together in the exhibition. Not only is this evident in how the landscape has been represented but also in the mark-making and the use of paint. This is just one of many dialogues that are occurring between the work of the selected artists. Ultimately, the work chosen for this exhibition highlights the vitality of Toledo and the surrounding area. The range of expression and the technical proficiency of the work is a testament to the cultural health of the region – as well as the success of each of the artists. I want to congratulate the selected artists for their commitment to their creative practice and for sharing their unique voices with the community and 20 North Gallery.”

The online exhibition catalogue for “ARToledo 2024” containing images of the exhibited art, prices and artist information will be posted at the 20 North Gallery website: 20northgallery.com

What: “ARToledo 2024” Public Opening Reception
Where: 20 North Gallery, 18 N. St. Clair Street, (Downtown) Toledo, Ohio 43604, 419-241-2400
When: Friday, April 19, 2024, 6 pm – 9 pm

Regular Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Saturday: Noon – 4 pm
By Appointment

For more information, contact: Condessa Croninger (Art Director) or visit 20northgallery.com.