Postlude To An Exhibition
at the Alice Wilds gallery, Milwaukee
at the Alice Wilds gallery, Milwaukee
Part IV of a series of four related projects
Installation photo of Garage Photos made from outside looking through a gallery window
Installation photo of Garage Photos made from outside looking through a gallery window
Introduction
This is the fourth and concluding project in a series of four related projects inspired by a meditation experience on New Years Day, 2018. I have described that experience in detail in the first project The Rising Sun-Prelude To An Exhibition which also includes a sequence of twelve symmetrical photographs which give visual form to that experience. In this project I provide a textual and visual documentation of the mini retrospective exhibition at the Alice Wilds.
The second and third projects in the series, besides containing snow photographs, focus on key influences on my life in photography with an emphasis on photographers and teachers with which I had studied as a young student. I think the impulse to look back and contemplate some of my most important teachers had to do with the fact that I had agreed to give two gallery talks during my visit to Milwaukee in late April to see the exhibition. One of talks would be with photography students from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. That got me thinking about my own experiences as a student of photography, and the teachers who had been so important to me in those early, formative years (1963-1975). Though I mentioned Minor White and Alfred Stieglitz as important influences in the second project, after publishing that project it occurred to me that these two Masters of photography deserved a much more deeply considered acknowledgement.
I published the final project, Postlude To An Exhibition on the one month anniversary date of my visit to Milwaukee (between April 18 - 22, 2018). The Prelude project of 2018 has underwent a major revision in January, 2020. The 2018 Prelude included the content that has since become the third project. The revised Postlude project before you now includes an important Afterword which attempts to briefly place the four related projects in the context of some important events that occurred in the spring and fall of 2019.
My choice of the word "Postlude" in this project's title is an acknowledgement of the important influence Silvestrov, his music and his ideas have been in my creative process. Silvestrov has written some of the most powerful and beautiful music I have ever heard, and like Harry Callahan--and like your truly-- Silvestrov's career as an artist has encompassed a broad spectrum of styles and forms. My approach to my Creative Process has been to let It determine where the work needs to go rather than try to artificially sustain some kind of career-long visual continuity or allow the pressures of the art world and its marketplace to sway what I do from one moment to the next.
Certainly the practice of Siddha Yoga Meditation, which began in 1987, has been a major impact on my creative process in photography. I have already indicated above that the first of the four related projects in this series, The Rising Sun : Prelude To An Exhibition is a detailed textual and visual-photographic response to an intense yogic meditation experience that occurred in a New Years Yoga program presented by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. (See my project Photography and Yoga.)
However before 1987, music was a major influence upon my work--and has continued to be, to this day, as the three Silverstrov inspired projects (part three of this series, Symmetrical Snow Photographs : Homage to A Stieglitz, M White and V Silvestrov, and my 2015 project The Photograph as ICON, and most recently, the June, 2019 project Studies x : 24 Photographs ~ Meditations on "The Moment" ~ Homage to Valentin Silvestrov) clearly affirm.
Music first entered my creative process in a book of photographs I created in 1968 for a senior visual thesis project at the Institute of Design in Chicago. The structure of the book, entitled Kraus, and the use of recurring imagery in that book, was inspired by Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle and his use of the musical notion of leitmotiv. The idea of image repetition then re-emerged strongly in the Morton Feldman projects. And the symmetrical photographs that emerged in my creative process in 2011 have its origins in Feldman's music as well. See my project Prayer Stones, the first chapter of my "An Imaginary Book" the complete list of my Music Inspired Photography Projects.
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This project, Postlude To An Exhibition, is basically a report (and a love letter) about my "Home Coming Exhibition" and the celebration gatherings, gallery talks, publications and other wonderful things that happened that weekend, complete with visual documentation. Its a story about an artist who left a place in despair and then was asked to return because a few people truly cared.
Welcome to the concluding fourth project of the four-part series of projects.
A Welcoming Snowfall of Grace
Gloria and I had begun our drive from Canandaigua to Milwaukee on April 17 to view the mini retrospective exhibition of my work presented at The Alice Wilds gallery and attend the Galley Night opening, give some gallery talks, party with friends, and much much morel.
Driving time usually ranges between 12-14 hours from Canandaigua, NY depending on weather, traffic in Cleveland and Chicago, food and gas stops, etc. The drive takes us past Rochester, NY through Buffalo, Cleveland, past South Bend and through Gary, Indiana, and then finally through Chicago. We were quite familiar with the drive for we had done it on an average of twice a year for the 33 years we lived in Milwaukee because Gloria was born and raised in Rochester, NY. (which is a forty minute drive north and west of Canandaigua where we now live). We would typically drive to Rochester for the Christmas and Summer holidays with our two children to visit Gloria's parents, her brother and her two sisters and their families.
This drive was not uneventful. We nearly got run over by a truck when it changed lanes on us without warning; and when we entered Chicago we ran into a quirky snow storm. The snow created longer than usual delays in Chicago, and as evening approached and the snow dramatically increased with large wet flakes, the driving was unusually slow going all the way from Chicago to Milwaukee.
If you are familiar with my recent work you will know that snow has been an important subject for my photography during the winter months for the past several years (click here to see my collection of snow projects). The two middle projects in this cycle of four related projects feature snow photographs. I love the way snow transforms the world and makes space palpably alive and visible. The unexpected snowfall in Milwaukee was extraordinarily beautiful; it magically transformed the place we had lived in for over 33 years into a miraculously beautiful Welcoming winter wonderland.
In Siddha Yoga we often speak of "the rain of grace," and for me that idea extends to snow--which is, after all is some magical grace-full combination of water and cyrstallized light. I had been feeling anxious about showing my work again in Milwaukee, and meeting old friends and students and colleagues I hadn't seen in a long time; but the magical quality of the snowfall that greeted us as we entered Milwaukee seemed to be saying to me: "Remember: it's all grace." "Whatever happens will be perfect."
Remembrance is indeed a yogic practice. And I consider all four of the projects in this series--and each of the photographs within them--as a reminder that everything is grace and an integral part of a much larger Creative Process that constitutes my unfolding awareness of the One divine Self that exists in everyone and everything. I have worked hard to imbibe this primary yogic teaching for the past thirty-plus years. This simple truth, after all, is what my creative process has been essentially about.
Regarding the Installation
The Alice Wilds exhibition, entitled Steven D. Foster : The Space Between ~ Selected Works from 1977 - 2017 consisted of fifty-three framed photographs representing eleven projects made over a forty year period. The show was beautifully selected and installed by John Sobczak, Director of The Alice Wilds gallery. He was careful not to overcrowd the space and at the same time he put together elegant looking and insightfully sequenced constellations of images that encompassed multiple thematic categories of my work that emerged over that forty year period. You can see excellent installation photographs of the exhibition (by Tyler Jones and Daniel McCullough) and close-up views of selected images that were exhibited at this link: The Alice Wilds Archive. (Click on the first image and scroll right with the arrow.)
The exhibition, which was presented in chronological order, began with six silver gelatin prints from the 1977 project, The Steve Lacy Series (photographs of Milwaukee neighborhood places that give visual form to my response to the jazz music of Steve Lacy); then followed seven silver gelatin prints from the 1981-82 Lake Series (photographs of Lake Michigan made from Milwaukee shorelines); then there were four silver gelatin prints from the 1983-84 project Images of Eden (photographs made within the Milwaukee County Park System); and then John created a large grouping of 12 framed miniature (3.5" sq.) silver gelatin prints from the 1999-2000 Garage Series project. Just to the left of constellation of miniature garage images John placed a grouping of four larger (18" sq.) digital prints from the 2006 digital version of the Garage Series.
The Garage Series : 12 small gelatin prints, and 4 large digital prints
I like to think of the small garage photographs as "character portraits" (of Milwaukee) and the larger digital versions as "sound images" suspended in black space--a visual metaphor for silence. The Garage Series photographs were the first in a collection of three large projects made in Homage to American composer Morton Feldman.) All of the projects mentioned thus far constitute something like a "portrait" or poetic document of Milwaukee. See my project Makom : Milwaukee Place Photography Projects.
The gallery wall leading back to the office area contained five Chromatic Field images from my multi-chaptered 2003-06 project Triadic Memories which is one of the three large projects in Homage to the composer Morton Feldman. (The other two are the Garage Series and The Departing Landscape Project.
Then further down the wall, past the Chromatic Fields, there were five large symmetrical photographs from the Crystalline Paradise project (photographs made in Moorish Spain in 2012). Behind the office desk was one symmetrical photograph from the 2015 project Photography and Yoga, and further down the wall from the desk there was another single symmetrical photograph from the 2016 project Center of Being.
Symmetrical image from Photography and Yoga
Symmetrical image from The Center of Being
The exhibit concluded in the back part of the gallery. Seven beautifully displayed selections from my three recent Broad Brook projects (2016 & 2017). Five of the seven images were straight Broad Brook photographs, and other two were Symmetrical Broad Brook photographs from my project entitled Death : A Meditation.
Before I entered the gallery I passed by a window through which I could see the title of the show on the wall. Then just inside the door and down a short hallway there was a framed color photograph from my 2006-13 Studies III Color Photographs project, an image entitled Butterflies and Oranges. This rather small photograph, within which there appears to be a rather large "eye," seemed to serve the multiple purpose of "Welcoming" visitors to the exhibition, "Watching" them as they strolled through the gallery, and then "Thanking" them for coming.
Butterflies and Oranges from the Color Studies project
Miniature silver gelatin print from the Studies / Garage series projects
The Studies Projects are particularly dear to my heart. The small silver gelatin Garage Series prints in the exhibition were originally made as part of the large 1990's Studies project. As the garage images began to dominate my creative process I realized that the growing collection of garage images needed to be identified as its own separate project. Then, when I realized that the series was being influenced by the music and ideas of Morton Feldman, an American composer I had just discovered and was becoming fascinated with by at that time, I decided to designate The Garage Series as the first of three large projects made in response to and in Homage to Morton Feldman and his music.
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When I met with John Sobczak and Jon Horvath in April of 2017 and we talked about an exhibition of my work at The Alice Wilds, I insisted that they choose the pictures and design the installation of the exhibition. I preferred to see how John and Jon saw my work, and how they would respond to the challenge of selecting prints from such a huge collection of projects. I have been in the process of posting the entire history of my work on my blog since November, 2010; choosing images from over seventy projects--images that would look good together and make some kind of sense together within a limited space--was something I did not want to take on myself. The "blog" was my "complete" online exhibition of my creative process.
John and Jon worked together a long time on the selection process, but, as I understand it, they finally decided that John would take charge of the exhibition and present the images in a chronological sequence, and Jon would select and edit a catalogue for the exhibition, using a non-linear, poetic-interpretive approach to presenting selections of my work from an even broader range of projects than was represented in the gallery exhibition.
I am exceedingly grateful to them both for their untiring efforts and willingness to take on the responsibilities of curating and designing the show and catalogue. It all worked out beautifully. And their commitment to doing that work allowed me to focus all my attention and energies on making new photographs--namely the 1) Prelude To An Exhibition, 2) the Homage to All my Teachers, Symmetrical Snow Photographs : Homage to A Stieglitz, M White and V Silvestrov, and 3) this concluding project, Postlude To An Exhibition.
Reviews, Catalogue, and a Blog Article
Several things were published in relation to my exhibition at The Alice Wilds gallery. To begin with, see the gallery's two email posters created for the exhibition The Space Between at the very top of my Rising Sun project page.
Mary Lousie Schumacher, award winning Art Critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, wrote twice about the exhibition on her weekly blog named Art City. The following mention of my exhibition at The Alice Wilds gallery was published on Friday, April 13, 2018, one of her first blog entries after returning to Milwaukee after a year 's leave on a Neiman Foundation Fellowship at Harvard University:
If you want a tip about what to give your culture -seeking attention to, I have two words: Steven Foster. Steve is one of the most inspired artists to have ever (and I don't use that word lightly) worked in Milwaukee, an artist whose work is in many ways too quiet, too subtle, too out of time, for our internet era. All the more reason to unplug and get over there.
On the following Friday, April 20, 2018, she elaborated on some of these themes. Here is an excerpt from May Louise's illustrated article:
As an art critic there are artist who haunt you, whose work is so clearly special in that one-in-a-generation way, but for whom the process of creating words to place alongside that work seems beyond one's capacities.
from the project Images of Eden
click here to see the project
click on image to enlarge
Then a decade ago Steven left. An inspired artist and teacher, a student of Minor White, he slipped away from Milwaukee and relocated in upstate New York.
Now The Alice Wilds gallery has placed a corrective on its walls. The've brought Steven and his work back to Milwaukee. A small retrospective spanning 40 years of his sensitive, philosophic art remains on view for a little more than a week. It has been lovingly created with the help of one of his last students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Jon Horvath.
I saw it last evening, involuntarily shaking my head again and again in disbelief at the inexplicable, subtle beauty. As I've said before, Foster is one of the most inspired artists to have ever produced work here, an artist who is in many ways too quiet, too spiritual, too out of time for our era of inattention . . .
Mary Louise mentioned the names of Minor White and Jon Horvath in her article. See my projcect Symmetrical Snow Photographs : Homage to A Stieglitz, M White and V Silvestrov for some writing I have done regarding Minor White. Below, I will quote from Jon Horvath's written statement that comes at the end of the 74 page catalogue created for the Alice Wilds gallery in conjunction with the exhibition. The catalogue, entitled Steven D. Foster : The Space Between, 1977 - 2017 was conceived, edited and designed by Jon and co-designer Daniel Chung. It includes photographs from 23 of the over seventy projects posted on my blog.
Click on the images to enlarge
Jon Horvath wrote: . . . after persisting through his labyrinthian online project "The Departing Landscape" it becomes unmistakably clear the significance Steven Foster places in spontaneous moments of revelation within his own life and practice. It was within one such moment at the age of 10, a first introduction to drugstore snapshots by a family member, just weeks before he'd lose his father, that Steven understood his life's pursuit would be with the medium of photography. More recently it was a moment within a museum of Turkish and Islamic art, where the pages of an illuminated Qur'an appeared to come to life, and set him feverishly on path toward a deeper understanding of sacred art. Much of Steven's proclivity towards such phenomena is well documented in his own writing, where he credits the concept of synchronicity, moments of meaningful coincidence when the internal psyche recognizes itself manifest in the external world, as influencing the underlying thesis for decades of prolific work. It is the idea of unexpected moments of coming together, spiritual, psychic, and otherwise, that binds Steven Foster's full oeuvre, ranging from works about family, music, poetry, spirituality, and the self. It is that which allows Steven to bend and reshape his own imagery by repeatedly reworking his visuals time and time again. And it is within that spirit that the pages of this catalog have taken shape, providing for a non-chronological poetic reinterpretation of Steven's work that strives to unearth moments of meaningful connection, sympathetic imagery, and new relationships that were never intended to be, but point at something of greater depth that has persisted since Steven first picked up a camera.
Jon concludes: I've never quite known how to put into language the symbiotic relationship I feel with Steven through his imagery. As I inch closer to some word or phrase that feels right, it quickly slips away and leaves me feeling foolish for even trying. So, instead I choose to be absorbed fully by the intoxicatingly significant breadth of his remarkable career . . .
It would be good to reiterate here that the new symmetrical photographs I made for the project Symmetrical Snow Photographs : Homage to A Stieglitz, M White and V Silvestrov are transformations (i.e, Re-Visions) of the straight snow photographs which were included in the Snow Photographs : Homage to Harry Callahan and All My Teachers project. This is a perfect example of my propensity "to bend and reshape my imagery repeatedly, reworking . . . [my images] time and time again."
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Finally, Daniel McCullough published an article about me and my work for the well-known photography blog Lenscratch.com on April 21, 2018. Daniel was one of Jon Horvath's graduating seniors this past spring semester (2018) at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Daniel first worked with John Sobczak as an intern at the Dean Jensen Gallery in Milwaukee in 2016, then continued as an intern at The Alice Wilds after Dean retired his gallery and John and Tina Schinabeck opened the Alice Wilds gallery in the fall of 2017. I met Daniel while I was in Milwaukee. He is an outstanding photographer; he is smart, articulate and self-effacing. He did an excellent job in choosing images and introducing my work in his Lenscratch article.
Click on the images to enlarge
Daniel's introduction includes a detailed account--excerpted from my blog writings--about the death of my father (when I was nearly eleven years old) and my sense of the destined role photography has played in my life. The article includes a broad sampling of my work from a variety of projects, and some installation shots of the exhibition space at The Alice Wilds. Thank you Daniel! (Click on this link Lenscratch/Foster to view Daniel's article Steven D. Foster : The Space Between.)
Two Gallery Talks & the Gallery Night Opening
John Sobczak sincerely cares about the students who come to the gallery--they represent, of course, the future artists of Milwaukee. Indeed John has become a mentor for many local students and some of them have voluntarily helped with the running of the gallery. John has had many years experience as a professional gallerist, and knows and loves photography quite intimately. He and the The Alice Wilds has a lot to offer young, committed, hardworking artists.
I met with around 25 students from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design at the Alice Wilds gallery on Thursday afternoon, April 19 to speak with them about my work in the exhibition. Most, I believe, were Jon Horvath's students. They were a wonderful, engaged group of young artists. They listened intensely as I introduced each of the projects represented in the exhibition, talked about aspects of my creative process and answered questions.
Gallery Talk with MIAD students Thursday afternoon Photo by Tyler Jones
I noticed that the students huddled around me closely as I talked, which was quite enjoyable; and it was also quite different compared to the way the audience interacted with me at my Public Gallery Talk on Saturday afternoon, April 21. (See the pictures above and below, taken during the two gallery talks.)
A panoramic view by Kevin Miyazaki of the main gallery space during my public
Gallery Talk on Saturday, April 21, 2018 at the Alice Wilds Gallery
Milwaukee holds four Gallery Night and Day Openings each year. The Gallery Night Opening for my show was Friday, April 20, and there was a continuous flow of people coming and going throughout the evening. Many past students and friends and colleagues came to greet me and welcome me back. It was wonderful to catch up with those I had not spoken with for perhaps as many as 12-25 years! And Tina Schinabeck, co-owner of The Alice Wilds, contributed this beautiful work of art (pictured below) for all to enjoy. (Note the plate of extraordinary homemade cookies in the upper left hand corner of the image.)
After I gave the Public Gallery Talk on Saturday afternoon, one of my very first students at UW-Milwaukee (1975) threw a private party for me. It was an intimate gathering of friends and artists and colleagues in which I was able to talk with everyone in a very relaxed, comfortable and nurturing atmosphere.
Gloria's dear friend Paula and her husband John took great care of us during our visit, and they came (amidst their very busy schedules) to both the Friday night Opening and the Public Gallery Talk on Saturday. Thank you! Paula and John.
Gallery Night Opening: Tina's Beautiful Offering of food and drink at The Alice Wilds
(click on the image to enlarge; and don't forget the cookies--upper left)
Gloria's dear friend Paula and her husband John took great care of us during our visit, and they came (amidst their very busy schedules) to both the Friday night Opening and the Public Gallery Talk on Saturday. Thank you! Paula and John.
The Space Between
I was fortunate in being able to exhibit my work regularly in Milwaukee and Chicago between 1975 and 2004. I have always felt it was my duty to share my creative process with my immediate communities. However I almost always found it a personal challenge interfacing with gallery personal and the viewing public. I have never felt comfortable at gallery and museum openings; I would just want to withdraw into an interior space which separated myself from others. I think this tendency is based on my being too personally identified with my photographs, and not knowing how to interact with others in a social situation. I was always hungry for intimate conversation about my work, but that is nearly impossible at openings.
My yogic studies and practices have helped me with this issue. It is now my understanding that "I" am not the one who is doing the work. Instead I see myself as someone who facilitates making visible the fruits of a creative process that has its own autonomy. I try (as best I can) to stay out of the way so that something greater than myself can manifest the images--images that function for me as symbols. I call that "something greater" than myself, the Creative Process. In many Hindu traditions this creative energy is called Shakti, the "Creative Power of the Universe," a transcendent power of the divine Self. I like to call it grace.
Working with John and Jon on this show was a refreshingly new experience for me. I felt there was a basic understanding, a respect and enthusiasm that we shared equally with each other. That was not my usual feeling in my dealings with most gallery and museum personal. And in regards to my experience of the Gallery Night Opening, in general the space between me and everyone else felt full with love, respect and gratitude. It was really good reconnecting with many of those I had known from my Milwaukee past, and I equally enjoyed meeting new students and interested gallery visitors. It was a pleasure to see my work placed upon the walls of the gallery (and on the pages of the catalogue) with so much care and insight and elegance.
The experience has continued to unfold and expand as I've work on this project, contemplated my memories and shared them with you here. The entire process has been something like an inward journey for me, a Return Home.
In mid January, 2020 I returned to this project and added some additional thoughts in form of an Afterword. It's just below, following my section on Gratitude.
My yogic studies and practices have helped me with this issue. It is now my understanding that "I" am not the one who is doing the work. Instead I see myself as someone who facilitates making visible the fruits of a creative process that has its own autonomy. I try (as best I can) to stay out of the way so that something greater than myself can manifest the images--images that function for me as symbols. I call that "something greater" than myself, the Creative Process. In many Hindu traditions this creative energy is called Shakti, the "Creative Power of the Universe," a transcendent power of the divine Self. I like to call it grace.
Working with John and Jon on this show was a refreshingly new experience for me. I felt there was a basic understanding, a respect and enthusiasm that we shared equally with each other. That was not my usual feeling in my dealings with most gallery and museum personal. And in regards to my experience of the Gallery Night Opening, in general the space between me and everyone else felt full with love, respect and gratitude. It was really good reconnecting with many of those I had known from my Milwaukee past, and I equally enjoyed meeting new students and interested gallery visitors. It was a pleasure to see my work placed upon the walls of the gallery (and on the pages of the catalogue) with so much care and insight and elegance.
The experience has continued to unfold and expand as I've work on this project, contemplated my memories and shared them with you here. The entire process has been something like an inward journey for me, a Return Home.
In mid January, 2020 I returned to this project and added some additional thoughts in form of an Afterword. It's just below, following my section on Gratitude.
Gratitude
Thank You! Everyone in Milwaukee!! who came to the gallery and welcomed me and Gloria with your palpable kindness. Thank you, Gloria, for the extraordinary support you have given me and my creative process over the past fifty years. And a special heartfelt expression of gratitude to John, and Jon and Tina; and Ken, Kevin and Marilu; Paula and John; Daniel and Mary Louise; and our daughter Jessica, her partner Paul, and our grandson River! with whom I was able to play several times during our visit . . . until I finally "wore him out" (just kidding).
Afterword
_____________Mid-January, 2020_____________
Steve Lacy Series Exhibition at MoWA DTN in the Saint Kate Art Hotel
A little over a year after our trip to Milwaukee to see the Space Between exhibition, Gloria and I returned to (in June, 2019) to celebrate our grandson's birthday. While in town I met with Tyler Friedman, then a recently hired curator at the Museum of Wisconsin Art. He had not seen the Alice Wilds mini retrospective in the spring of 2018, but John Sobczak had been introducing him to some of the best young artists in the Milwaukee area and Tyler had grown to appreciate and respect John's support.
John had been encouraging Tyler to come to the gallery to see my work from the retrospective and other prints I had sent him. But the timing was never right. However when John learned I was coming to town in June he was able to arrange for the three of us to meet one night at the gallery to look at my work. (See my Homage to Federico Mompou project.) During the print viewing session Tyler seemed to have hinted at the prospect of a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, but nothing more was spoken about it at the time.
John had been encouraging Tyler to come to the gallery to see my work from the retrospective and other prints I had sent him. But the timing was never right. However when John learned I was coming to town in June he was able to arrange for the three of us to meet one night at the gallery to look at my work. (See my Homage to Federico Mompou project.) During the print viewing session Tyler seemed to have hinted at the prospect of a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, but nothing more was spoken about it at the time.
Tyler became noticeably excited about the Steve Lacy Series photographs when he saw them at the gallery. He was very interested in jazz, and the relationship between music and visual art; in fact (amazing, to me) he actually knew Steve Lacy's music!
Tyler had been looking for photographs that could be exhibited in the Museum's small, downtown gallery--located in the lobby of the Saint Kate Art Hotel in Milwaukee--during the Society for Photographic Education's 2019 Midwest Chapter Conference, to be held in Milwaukee in late October. Later, Tyler selected eleven of my Steve Lacy photographs for one part of the two part exhibition, and he very carefully and elegantly installed them in the front part of the MoWA DTN gallery along with an installation of another artist's work in the back of the gallery. The exhibition was entitled Sound / Asleep.
Shortly after our viewing session at the Alice Wilds gallery, I was invited by the Planning Committee of the 2019 Midwest SPE Chapter Conference to come to Milwaukee for the Conference in late October, 2019 as "Honored Educator" and give a talk about my life in photography and teaching during the concluding evening program of the Conference.
At that program, just before I gave my talk, Jon Horvath and John Sobczak came up on the stage to speak about their experience of studying photography with me at UW-Milwaukee. Then after my talk, an announcement was made (surprising to me) that the Conference Planning Committee had purchased two of my gelatin silver prints from the Garage Series, and they were to be gifted to the Museum of Wisconsin Art for inclusion of their permeant collection.
And then another surprise followed: Tyler Friedman, who had attended my talk that night, came up on stage to officially receive the gift of prints for the Museum! He then announced to the 300+ conference attendees in the audience that the Museum of Wisconsin Art would be mounting a retrospective exhibition of my photographs in 2021; there would be a catalogue published; and they intended to travel the exhibition.
Tyler had been looking for photographs that could be exhibited in the Museum's small, downtown gallery--located in the lobby of the Saint Kate Art Hotel in Milwaukee--during the Society for Photographic Education's 2019 Midwest Chapter Conference, to be held in Milwaukee in late October. Later, Tyler selected eleven of my Steve Lacy photographs for one part of the two part exhibition, and he very carefully and elegantly installed them in the front part of the MoWA DTN gallery along with an installation of another artist's work in the back of the gallery. The exhibition was entitled Sound / Asleep.
Shortly after our viewing session at the Alice Wilds gallery, I was invited by the Planning Committee of the 2019 Midwest SPE Chapter Conference to come to Milwaukee for the Conference in late October, 2019 as "Honored Educator" and give a talk about my life in photography and teaching during the concluding evening program of the Conference.
At that program, just before I gave my talk, Jon Horvath and John Sobczak came up on the stage to speak about their experience of studying photography with me at UW-Milwaukee. Then after my talk, an announcement was made (surprising to me) that the Conference Planning Committee had purchased two of my gelatin silver prints from the Garage Series, and they were to be gifted to the Museum of Wisconsin Art for inclusion of their permeant collection.
And then another surprise followed: Tyler Friedman, who had attended my talk that night, came up on stage to officially receive the gift of prints for the Museum! He then announced to the 300+ conference attendees in the audience that the Museum of Wisconsin Art would be mounting a retrospective exhibition of my photographs in 2021; there would be a catalogue published; and they intended to travel the exhibition.
See my blog project Snapshots : Stories of My Life In Photography & Teaching. It contains an expanded version of the talk I gave at the SPE Conference, installation photos of my Steve Lacy photographs in the MoWA DTN Gallery in the Saint Kate Art Hotel and my descriptions of what occurred in the gallery during my two gallery talks with jazz musician Russ Johnson and Tyler Friedman.
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Looking back, now, at the entire chain of events that brought me and my work back into Milwaukee's Art Scene after a ten year absence, it seems as if someOne had devised a grand scheme.
It all began with John Sobczak's email to me on January 17, 2017 in which he told me he was going to open a new contemporary art gallery in Milwaukee, the Alice Wilds, with Tina Schinabeck. Then he wrote: "The consensus here is that you have been away far too long. We simply must do a show. I hope this request is met with the brilliantly sunny optimism with which it is being sent . . . "
(This quote is taken from the first project in the series of four related projects: The Rising Sun : Prelude To An Exhibition.)
I was shocked and dismayed when I read John's email. I had gotten to the point where I was perfectly happy not dealing with art galleries and museums, and just working in a Creative Flow alone in Canandaigua, New York, publishing one blog project after another. . . It was so peaceful in may respects. At last in my "retirement" I could just focus on my work.
I agreed to meet with John Sobczak and Jon Horvath in April, 2017 while Gloria and I were in town to visit our grandson River and our daughter Jessica and her partner, Paul. John and Jon essentially and enthusiastically insisted that I agree to do the exhibition.
They drove to Canandaigua in the summer of 2017 and collected tons of my photographs to take back to Milwaukee with them so they could select a mini retrospective exhibition for the Alice Wilds in 2018.
Then, on New Years Day, 2018, I had the meditation experience at the Siddha Yoga Meditation Center in Rochester, New York that initiated The Rising Sun: Prelude To An Exhibition project, and then the three projects that followed it:
2 Snow Photographs : Homage to Harry Callahan and All My Teachers
3 Symmetrical Snow Photographs : Homage to A Stieglitz, M White and V Silvestrov
4 Postlude To An Exhibition
I can see now that those four projects had actually prepared me for the exhibition at the Alice Wilds; the meeting I had at the gallery with Tyler Friedman; the Steve Lacy installation and gallery talks I gave in the MoWA DTN Gallery in the lobby of the Saint Kate Art Hotel; the SPE talk I delivered at the Conference; and Tyler's public announcement of the retrospective at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
In my contemplations of all that has transpired over the past few years in relationship to Milwaukee, it has occurred to me that Tyler's decision to select and install the eleven Steve Lacy photographs in the MoWA DTN Gallery during the Conference, and to have a jazz musician respond musically to the images and the installation, was quite significant for me in symbolic kind of way. He had essentially resurrected a series of events that occurred very early in my art career: the 1978 exhibition of the The Steve Lacy photographs at the Renaissance Society Galleries in Chicago. (see my project: The Steve Lacy Series) That exhibition opened many doors for me to the Art Scene in Chicago. The exhibition (complete with its radical-musical installation of the images, and an opening night jazz concert by members of the AACM) was a critical success that sparked the beginning of a fruitful exhibition career in Chicago and Milwaukee galleries. Key to all this was the supportive relationship I had begun with David Travis, curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, who recommended my Steve Lacy photographs to the Renaissance Society Galleries, and a few years later, in 1982, presented a large mid-career retrospective exhibition in the newly installed photography galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago.
There are so many synchronistic connections that belie all these events that have unfolded over the years that it would make one's head swim to try to identify and explain it all. But it is my strong feeling that each and every event was pervaded by grace and the mystery of what might be termed destiny.
It all began with John Sobczak's email to me on January 17, 2017 in which he told me he was going to open a new contemporary art gallery in Milwaukee, the Alice Wilds, with Tina Schinabeck. Then he wrote: "The consensus here is that you have been away far too long. We simply must do a show. I hope this request is met with the brilliantly sunny optimism with which it is being sent . . . "
(This quote is taken from the first project in the series of four related projects: The Rising Sun : Prelude To An Exhibition.)
I was shocked and dismayed when I read John's email. I had gotten to the point where I was perfectly happy not dealing with art galleries and museums, and just working in a Creative Flow alone in Canandaigua, New York, publishing one blog project after another. . . It was so peaceful in may respects. At last in my "retirement" I could just focus on my work.
I agreed to meet with John Sobczak and Jon Horvath in April, 2017 while Gloria and I were in town to visit our grandson River and our daughter Jessica and her partner, Paul. John and Jon essentially and enthusiastically insisted that I agree to do the exhibition.
They drove to Canandaigua in the summer of 2017 and collected tons of my photographs to take back to Milwaukee with them so they could select a mini retrospective exhibition for the Alice Wilds in 2018.
Then, on New Years Day, 2018, I had the meditation experience at the Siddha Yoga Meditation Center in Rochester, New York that initiated The Rising Sun: Prelude To An Exhibition project, and then the three projects that followed it:
2 Snow Photographs : Homage to Harry Callahan and All My Teachers
3 Symmetrical Snow Photographs : Homage to A Stieglitz, M White and V Silvestrov
4 Postlude To An Exhibition
I can see now that those four projects had actually prepared me for the exhibition at the Alice Wilds; the meeting I had at the gallery with Tyler Friedman; the Steve Lacy installation and gallery talks I gave in the MoWA DTN Gallery in the lobby of the Saint Kate Art Hotel; the SPE talk I delivered at the Conference; and Tyler's public announcement of the retrospective at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
*
In my contemplations of all that has transpired over the past few years in relationship to Milwaukee, it has occurred to me that Tyler's decision to select and install the eleven Steve Lacy photographs in the MoWA DTN Gallery during the Conference, and to have a jazz musician respond musically to the images and the installation, was quite significant for me in symbolic kind of way. He had essentially resurrected a series of events that occurred very early in my art career: the 1978 exhibition of the The Steve Lacy photographs at the Renaissance Society Galleries in Chicago. (see my project: The Steve Lacy Series) That exhibition opened many doors for me to the Art Scene in Chicago. The exhibition (complete with its radical-musical installation of the images, and an opening night jazz concert by members of the AACM) was a critical success that sparked the beginning of a fruitful exhibition career in Chicago and Milwaukee galleries. Key to all this was the supportive relationship I had begun with David Travis, curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, who recommended my Steve Lacy photographs to the Renaissance Society Galleries, and a few years later, in 1982, presented a large mid-career retrospective exhibition in the newly installed photography galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago.
*
There are so many synchronistic connections that belie all these events that have unfolded over the years that it would make one's head swim to try to identify and explain it all. But it is my strong feeling that each and every event was pervaded by grace and the mystery of what might be termed destiny.
And I want to make one final observation. As I looked at the list of projects I have published on my blog since the Postlude to An Exhibition (visit my blog's Welcome Page) I noticed there are several projects which look back and acknowledge the many people who have influenced my work and my career as an exhibiting artist. And there are several early projects (late 1960's - early 1970's) that I have finally published on my blog that I had previously placed "on hold" in order to give more time to my prolific unfolding of brand new projects.
Certainly the prospect of the retrospective in 2021 at the Museum of Wisconsin Art has inspired me to get the Intimate Space project of 1971-72, and the Makom : Milwaukee "Place" projects published in order to complete my early years archive and to make known the importance of Gaston Bachelard and the concept of Makom in my graduate school projects and early Milwaukee projects.
Other important projects I have recently completed include The New Mexico Landscapes of 1971-72 and the Emergence project completed in Atlanta in 1973. And the new project of September, 2019, Homage To Federico Mompou and his Sacred Music of Silence is relevant in a very interesting way: perhaps it never would have come into existence if I had not first completed (in late July and early August) the Mompou project, and if not for the meeting I had with Tyler Freidman and Johns Sobczak at the Wilds gallery in June of 2019 in which we began talking about piano miniatures--an important influence on my Studies projects in the late 1990's--and Tyler asked if I knew Mompou's music?
I confess to having experienced some anxiety since the announcement of the retrospective. I wonder if I will be able to find some of the larger files I would need to have if I am asked to print certain images posted in my blog projects for the exhibition and the publication. And there is a nagging fear that my Creative Process may become disrupted by the attention I will need to give to the many demands that will be forthcoming.
On the other hand, I have always had a high regard for and trust in my Creative Process. I have learned from past experiences that even in those times (there were few) when I felt I was not being productive (enough), I would later see how those periods of "silence" or "stillness" were important and meaningful times of inward preparation for something unknown that would need to emerge--of real importance--but which needed that space and time within which it could begin to unfold on untold levels of consciousness in its own time, in its own way.
I firmly believe that the best art--true art--is made when one's personal will finds its way of coming into alignment with the divine will which is always operating at the heart-and-center of One's Creative Process.
I continuously remind myself: Patience. Everything passes. Everything happens it its own right time. Everything is undergoing a process of transformation.
Certainly the prospect of the retrospective in 2021 at the Museum of Wisconsin Art has inspired me to get the Intimate Space project of 1971-72, and the Makom : Milwaukee "Place" projects published in order to complete my early years archive and to make known the importance of Gaston Bachelard and the concept of Makom in my graduate school projects and early Milwaukee projects.
Other important projects I have recently completed include The New Mexico Landscapes of 1971-72 and the Emergence project completed in Atlanta in 1973. And the new project of September, 2019, Homage To Federico Mompou and his Sacred Music of Silence is relevant in a very interesting way: perhaps it never would have come into existence if I had not first completed (in late July and early August) the Mompou project, and if not for the meeting I had with Tyler Freidman and Johns Sobczak at the Wilds gallery in June of 2019 in which we began talking about piano miniatures--an important influence on my Studies projects in the late 1990's--and Tyler asked if I knew Mompou's music?
*
I confess to having experienced some anxiety since the announcement of the retrospective. I wonder if I will be able to find some of the larger files I would need to have if I am asked to print certain images posted in my blog projects for the exhibition and the publication. And there is a nagging fear that my Creative Process may become disrupted by the attention I will need to give to the many demands that will be forthcoming.
On the other hand, I have always had a high regard for and trust in my Creative Process. I have learned from past experiences that even in those times (there were few) when I felt I was not being productive (enough), I would later see how those periods of "silence" or "stillness" were important and meaningful times of inward preparation for something unknown that would need to emerge--of real importance--but which needed that space and time within which it could begin to unfold on untold levels of consciousness in its own time, in its own way.
I firmly believe that the best art--true art--is made when one's personal will finds its way of coming into alignment with the divine will which is always operating at the heart-and-center of One's Creative Process.
I continuously remind myself: Patience. Everything passes. Everything happens it its own right time. Everything is undergoing a process of transformation.
This project was first posted on my Welcome Page
on May 21, 2018. The Afterword was added
January 16, 2020
January 16, 2020
Please visit my Welcome Page which contains a complete listing of my online photography projects, my resume, contact information, gallery affiliation, recently added projects and much more.
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