Marilynne Morshead | Sylph’s World

How could I have neglected this cozy little space for so long? Then again, my little neighborhood's been pretty quiet for a while. But I admit to being quite remiss, as I didn't post pix from my lovely little jaunt to merry old England. I'll dig in and fling them up sometime soon promise. The big news is that I've been shooting up a storm and making art!

I've always kept a constant stream of environmental portraiture coming through the pipeline, but lately I've felt an extremely strong pull towards abstraction. Another dance along the continuum, sliding between reality and the transcendant!

For those of you that know of one of my many alternate "tendrils" (patient advocate & medical guided imagery), I've retired the bulk of my private clients over the past six months. Having them healthy and happy is a welcome sight — no one should have to live in constant pain. This has given me the freedom to shoot up a storm, just in time for another exhibition: this one at Modernbook Gallery in Palo Alto, located at 494 University Avenue, Palo Alto, California
  (650) 327-6325   info@modernbook.com Come join the festivities!

Shown above are the front and back views of the series postcard, featuring the 12 images in "Discovery".

Stay tuned for more!

OK Fellow Film Fiends - The Festival is coming...April 26 - May 10, 2007!

I've renewed my membership, and I'm also going to do a little volunteer work. I'm planning to attend several of the "Big Nights" events, as well as regular films.

BIG NIGHTS I'M PLANNING TO ATTEND/RECOMMEND

TH 4/26 Opening Night Film Golden Door, with the after party at City Hall. Budget be damned, I'm going!

SU 4/29 Fog City Mavericks - all the Bay Area Big Wigs will be there.

MO 4/30 The True Story of the World: On the Road at 50 - Homage to Kerouac

TU An Evening with Heddy Honigmann featuring Forever

WE 5/2 An Evening with Spike Lee featuring two of the four "acts" from When the Levees Broke (all four parts screen at MOMA on Friday, May 4th)

FR 5/4 An Evening with Robin Williams featuring Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King 

SA 5/5 Centerpiece featuring Delirious (with Steve Buscemi - I might work the event, since I've already seen the film - a riot at Sundance)

TH 5/10 La Vie en Rose with an afterparty at Mezzanine

There's more of course, but this is just the start of the madness!

An edgy pick might include something from the Live & Onstage category, including: Notes to a Tune Underground. (The True Story of the World: On the Road at 50 is in this group).

I've attached a miniguide that you can download, so you pick your favorites.

I'm still working on my actual schedule, but here's a first pass at the list of films I'm considering:

* These films have distribution, but it's fun to see them within a festival enviroment with Q & A sessions, and parties!
- Films in bold are definite

All This Tea (part of Cinema by the Bay)
Agua
Amour-Legende
Arrows of Time (from the Kinotec section)
Bamako
Black Sheep (completely whacky horror film) *
Broken English *
The Caiman
Carved out of Pavement (part of Cinema by the Bay)
Congorama (I'm seeing this at the Aquarius in PA with my mother, patron saint of the arts!)
Crisis and Opportunity (a collection of shorts including the Sundance favorite The Fighting Cholitas)
Desperately Seeking Images (more shorts - some explicit - it is a film fest, after all!)
The Devil Came on Horseback (an intense doc on Darfur)
Eagle vs Shark * (another Sundance fave)
Emma's Bliss
Everything's Cool (seen at Sundance - a toxic comedy about the rift between people who believe in global climate change, and those who think it's a myth)
Fabricating Tom Ze
Forever *
Frame by Frame (animated shorts)
Golden Door *
GrandHotel
Halou, Tarentel and the Greenworld
Heavenly Kings (twisted tale about the rise of a boy band)
Heaven's Doors
How is Your Fish Today (another Sundance alum)
Jindabyne
The Key of G
La Vie en Rose *
Lady Chatterly (a new and improved French version)
The Monastery (blah, blah...Sundance)
Murch (part of Cinema by the Bay)
The Old, Weird America: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music (winner of longest title!)
Once * (more fun at Sundance)
Paprika * (anime)
Protagonist
The Rape of Europe (a "must-see" for me - a doc about how the Nazis looted and destroyed European artwork, and how many of the treasures survived)
Reprise
Rocket Science * (a fun award-winner at Sundance, well worth seeing!)
The Signal (more whacky horror)
Strange Culture (...Sundance)
Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project (a "must-see" for those of us with the Photo Bug)
Times and Winds
The 12 Labors
Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me it would Become This Bad in Afghanistan
Wonders are Many
Zolykha's Secret
Vanaja

Yes photo-fans, this one is in the future. But having missed the boat this quarter (Developing a Photographic Style: ART 208), I am planning ahead. Registration for Fall Quarter classes is Tuesday, August 21st, and I will be signing up for The Project course, the second in a three-course series. The third course, The Photography Exhibition Workshop will be taught during the Winter Session.

Brigitte Carnochan is represented in galleries nationally and has had numerous individual museum and gallery exhibitions internationally. In 2006, she published two books of her images, which are available locally and on her website: http://brigittecarnochan.com. An exhibition of her work was presented at Modernbook Gallery in Fall 2006.

                                                                                    

One of my favorites from Gitte's body of work, but I also love her floral and documentary images.

Another favorite photographer from my "archive", Martha Casanave, is leading a pinhole workshop in Monterey that coincides with Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

Check out the UC Extension Course blurbs:

Course Description 1
Course Description 2

Materials will be provided to make Holga cameras (120 roll film format) into “Pinholgas,” and to make pinhole cameras out of paint cans.  Cyanotype chemistry and a limited amount of paper will also be provided.

The workshop is already half-full. The last day to register is April 17th, as materials need to be ordered.

MARTHA CASANAVE, B.A.,  teaches master classes nationwide in addition to her regular teaching in photography at Cabrillo College and Monterey Peninsula College. Her personal work has won the Imogen Cunningham Photography Award (1979) and the Koret Israel Prize (1989) and is included in many collections, such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Chicago Art Institute, and most recently, the J. Paul Getty Museum.  Her third book, Martha Casanave: Explorations Along an Imaginary Coastline (Hudson Hills Press) was released in 2006.

Pinhole Narratives

Coastal Pinholes

CP: Techniques Article

CHRIS PATTON, B.A. in biological photography from UCSC, currently works as senior technician for Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, doing safety, photography, electron microscopy, computer animation, illustration, imaging and programming. He specializes in camera design, chemical formulations, alternative processes and digital imaging.

Chris Patton's "geeky" pinhole site at Stanford:

Ted was my first photography professor at University of Oregon, 8 million years ago ;) I've been meaning to track him down, and I'm keeping an eye on the UC Santa Cruz Extension catalog where he often teaches. Ted was an instructor at the Ansel Adams' Summer Yosemite Workshop for 15 seasons - the Ringleader along with Jerry Uelsmann (see previous post), and Martha Casanave (see future post). Galen Rowell was another guest instructor who never ceased to amaze us all with his boundless energy and wisdom. I still can't believe he's gone - he's left a void in the art world, no a trail - a comet's tail of energy.

 
Ted is also the co-author, with David Bayles, of the best-selling book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, and is author of its newly-released companion volume, The View From The Studio Door. Interestingly enough, Art and Fear was on reading list for the Stanford University Continuing Studies class - the course that catapulted me back towards photography - thanks again, Mark!
 
Artist statement:
 
"My first and only formal photography teacher was Ansel Adams, and not surprisingly B&W large format straight landscapes quickly became my definition of fine art photography. It took me years to realize that I don‘t actually lead a fine-grained life – and certainly not one that stands still long enough to set up a tripod and wait for things to settle into Zone System perfection. More often than not, I think, life is what happens while you‘re trying to set up your tripod.

 
In fact the more I photographed, the more I came to realize that the elements of the world that caught my eye were those I encountered almost by accident, en passant, often just out of the corner of my eye. That was fine with me, and helped as well to place some (necessary) aesthetic distance between my vision and that of my mentor. I continue to share Ansel‘s sense that the world is basically benign, but where his world was monumental and sharply defined, my world is more often quirky and decidedly fuzzy around the edges.
 
My ability to record the world in a manner that rings true to me took a great leap forward about fifteen years ago when I discovered a little plastic camera called the HOLGA. Plastic camera photography was considered a minor aberration back then, but it slowly gained a cult following, and has now blossomed into (ahem) a genre.
 
I do continue to use "real" cameras – digital models now – but my $20 Holga remains my true love. Holgas come complete with an f-stop (8), a shutter speed (1/60th) and a single-element plastic lens that filters out excessive sharpness so that realism doesn‘t get mistaken for reality. I carry it with me most everywhere, and then photograph whatever crosses my path. The secret is to follow interesting paths…."
 
Ted Orland (June 2006)
 

Join me for an evening with Jerry Uelsmann, a favorite photographer from my past (and future). I first met the artist during an Ansel Adams Gallery summer workshop in Yosemite, where he was one of the guest instructors. A marvelous visionary and great teacher!

Coming to ModernBook Gallery in Palo Alto:

                                                                            Dream Theatre

Exhibition - April 6 through May 30, 2007

Reception - Friday, April 13, 2007   7-10 PM

Trees in the fog at Montecastillo resort, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. This shot was taken during a morning walk - the definition of peaceful.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

I was in "full-sulk" mode after getting soaked in Barcelona, the city where I'd planned to pursue my quarry: people, not rocks, not trees, not buildings, not food. I wanted to capturing movement and emotion, but chic, dark umbrellas and raincoats were everywhere - cloaking devices that thwarted my devious little plan. All of the colorful people were covering up - they even cancelled the Carnival parade that was to have taken place right below my hotel balcony.

By the time I arrived in Madrid, I was begging for some street action...something that you don't find every day and that's unique to Spain...something that showed off its people and passion. Staying at the uber-deluxe Palace Hotel, oozing comfort, charm, service...a place where crumbs aren't allowed to stray from bread...a place so perfect I was certain we were far from any local color. But rounding the corner shortly after our arrival...light fading...there was a buzz ...and suddenly we encountered a stunningly huge hive of human activity. The street was filling and within moments was completely clogged, the people moving in a collective pulse. Lines were forming, but for what?

Friday in March - "Fiesta Cristo de Medinaceli"
The Iglesia de Medinaceli (church) in the Calle de Medinaceli attracts thousands of visitors to pay homage with three wishes made in front of a figure of Christ. It is is the believe that one of the wishes will be fulfilled. That's the official blurb, but it was more fun to hear the case of telephone operator from the crowd which variously reported that your wishes came true if you entered a crypt and kissed a dead saint's hair, or his feet. Call me vanilla, but I'm not sure I'm going to kiss a guy's feet even if he bathes, cooks and does the dishes, let alone someone that's been dead a while. But to each their own!

But security was also tight...apparently because Christina of Spain had arrived. But there's more to the security story in a moment. On to some images...first the straight shot.

Then a little blur:

And now a few of the people. Older women far outweighed any other group - many of them were struggling to stand - the crowd providing support. The respectful contrarian in me went in a different direction, mostly away from the time and care-ravaged...cautiously approaching people because this appeared to be a deeply religioius event. I noticed this first woman right away, rapidly talking with friends, hair flaming:

She wasn't posing, just gesturing. After I snapped she turned and beamed a huge smile. I showed her the photo, and she became ecstatic and started thanking me profusely. And I thought to myself...I love Spain...the people are so boisterous and friendly. Then the police showed up, demanding to see my camera. It seems a security detail was close to this woman a freaked when they saw my ginormous 70-200 L series lens pointed in their general direction. Please realize that my judgement deserted me for a moment, as I toyed with this man with a gun. I knew I didn't have any shots of his merry little band, but I just wanted to play a little...claiming not to understand what he wanted. He was speaking Spanish, and I claimed ignorance...and the band of women decided to play too, since I'd just been speaking (albeit haltingly) in their language with them. Eventually I showed him every single shot I had, and he went away in a huff, perhaps disappointed that I hadn't deemed him worthy.

The first woman pictured above would not stop talking. With the light almost gone, I was having trouble focusing, and I was convinced her lips were going to be a giant blur. She was as delighted as the first woman to have her photo taken, and her good cheer didn't wane when I told her I wan't from the local paper. Everyone knows of San Francisco from movies and TV shows, if they haven't actually been to our fair state. Almost without exception, everyone spoke about the hills and car chase scenes...but we always ended up talking food and wine...the other religion in Spain, and common ground for passionate discourse. 

The woman in the middle was apparently a close friend of the first, but she never spoke...the perfect foil. The gal pictured on the right never spoke either, and she wasn't with the first group. She came up to me while I was talking with the first group and gently, but persistently tugged on my arm and guided me through the crowd to the other end of the street to document her group. I guess I need not have worried about stepping on anyone's toes!

Random shots from my tour of Spain:

Palau de la Música Catalana - an incredibly beautiful building, with a terrific program. The week of our visit, they were deep into Bach's Brandenburg concertos. Yum!

http://home.palaumusica.org/

Just another night on La Rambla...

A great wine from the market...

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