New Exhibit! Lisa Frank: THE PATTERN THAT CONNECTS

The newest Steenbock Gallery exhibit opens this week! "The Pattern that Connects" features photographs by Lisa Frank.

“My artwork is influenced by my professional background as a textile designer,” says Frank.  “The activity of taking pictures almost daily in the woods makes for a visual diary – it illuminates my relationship with the natural world, and documents changing evidence of the ordinary and the astonishing.  Season after season I rely on nature’s comforting repetition – the familiarity and security that comes from knowing – seeing! – that soon after the appearance of the jack-in-the-pulpit comes the anticipated morel and the resulting mushroom risotto.  This creates the true ‘pattern’ of my work: the inter-relationships between all of nature’s corresponding parts, where one thing begets another, one day becomes a year and then two... This personal, arbitrary, asymmetrical time chart is deeply resonant for me and key to my understanding of what it means to be alive and of this world.  My patterns are constructed using Photoshop from these daily snapshots, and from scanographs composed in my studio.”

To view the artist’s work, visit www.lisafrankphotography.com

  

Join us on Friday, May 27, for an opening reception from 6-9PM.

This exhibition will run until from May 23 until July 1.  

Click Into Place: Work from UW-Madison Photo Students

Tyler Robbins

The UW-Madison photography students return to the Steenbock!!!!

Opening Monday, enjoy new work from photographers studying with Tom Jones in the undergraduate and graduate art programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, some that you've seen in years past, some that are exhibiting in Madison for the first time, and some that are new members of the Steenbock committee!!


OPENING RECEPTION: April 15, 5-9pm

William Zuback BOOK PASSAGES

Book Passages” is William Zuback's latest completed visual journey. He had asked friends, family and fans of his blog to send in brief book excerpts from their favorite or current book. Zuback invited the audience on this visual journey by making it an interactive conversation of idea's through the blog by posting each visual creation as he progressed through the submitted book passages.


Zuback's intent was to create a series that was less of a solo effort and more participatory with the audience/viewers. From an artistic viewpoint this body of work, although thematically different because of the variety of donated book passages, has shown a striking thread of similarity. It has been a great exercise in seeing, exploring and understanding his artistic expression.

A CLOSING RECEPTION will be held Saturday, January 8 from 1-3pm.

Interview with photographer Patricia Delker, AND STILL THERE ARE SECRETS

Our newest exhibit marks the return of a past exhibit curator, Patricia Delker.  This time, she's showing her new work, a series of intimate black and white portraits.  Always one for a great conversation, this time she's got you thinking that while she's telling you a secret, you may actually end up telling her one.  

1. There's currently a memoir revival in literature, and writers like Jeanette Walls and Mary Karr are changing the scope of autobiography by exorcising their family histories in unflinchingly direct language. Do you think all art starts as autobiography, and how do you think a personal series translates to viewers?

I think people...both artists and viewers...would probably be surprised at how much art is autobiographical, if they really delved into it. Well, artists might not be quite as surprised as viewers, but I do think what we select to make art about certainly originates in the intellect, the experiences and personal history of the maker. One photographer is drawn to make landscape photographs, another is not...that decision stems from what makes up the individual. I think it might be sort of an artistic DNA. I feel a bit sad for the "artist" who spends years trying to make work that looks like someone else's that they may admire. Being influenced by others is great, copying what they do is not making art in my opinion. As to whether a personal series translates to a viewer, I think the personal often is the universal. Though we often think we are so different from others, at the core we are probably more similar than different, and it's the core similarities that translate even when the work stems from one's personal life. In the case of "And Still There Are Secrets", I believe everyone carries around their own secrets, whether they are traumatic or humorous or even mundane...everyone has a secret.

2. You photograph the intangible. Can you tell us about that intangible - is it memory, emotion, or something different - and how do you pre-visualize it? What's your process?

The intangible can't be touched, but it's there. Yes, memory and emotion are intangibles, but so is faith/the spiritual...so is history/time...and thought/inspiration. It's like we are brought up to believe the three-dimensional tangible world is dominant and most important, but it really seems to me we are beings dominated by our intangible worlds as much or more than the tangible one. It seems like the tangible world put limits on us and intangible world is limitless. There is certain subject matter and objects that I have been drawn to from the beginning, and I began to see that and delve into why, and that thought process lead to the discovery that it wasn't so much about the subject matter itself, but what the subject matter meant. The subject was a symbol for something far larger...an intangible. I don't want to shortchange that inner journey or thought process because I think it's very important to an artist to understand certain things about themselves and their work, and it did take some time to understand why I was doing what I did when I was making photographs of my subjects. So...my process is thought first, image second. I try to steer away from making other people's pictures and stay in touch with the power of symbolism.

3. Your model Heather Solomon is a virtual chameleon in this series, and she seems to physically change from image to image - as a viewer, I had to remind myself that this was the same woman. Was this a collaborative effort that allowed Heather to bring her own emotion to the image, or was she fully directed? Would you share tips on working with and selecting models?

Heather is a close friend, and as my artist's statement says, I don't think this series would have been made without her collaboration. I appreciate that, and her, immensely. A photo session usually started by my preparing a list of secrets I wanted to explore, finding the objects that suitably represented them and had meaning to me personally or I thought was symbolic of the secret in some way. I then sketched out an idea of my first visions. All these things, plus camera/film, I brought to the session. Two thirds of the time I probably shared the particular secret with Heather, but even when I didn't, as friends we had already covered a lot of personal history which I think served the sessions. The sessions were only about an hour, hour and a half...we covered maybe six or so secrets a session, over a roughly two year period. (There are actually probably close to 40 "secrets" that we photographed, but I edited that work to the 21 that are in the exhibit.) I didn't want to waste Heather's time; after all, she was doing me a favor. Anyway, we started with the sketches, some explanation, and then would see where that might take us. Heather has a great ability to "get it", and also she came to work. Modeling is work. At some point, I often said, "well, what do you feel like doing with this...what works for you?" This was actually my first time to work at length with a model and I suspect I might now be very spoiled. But I think working with any model requires that you know what you want, you don't waste their time, you take what they do seriously with the expectation that they will take what you are doing seriously and you treat them and the process with respect. I think the thing I most value about Heather's involvement with this project is her ability to look at the work, or an individual picture, not as a picture of herself, but to be able to embrace the concept that it was a symbol for something else; it wasn't about her, it was about the project, and then evaluate the results with that perspective.

4. You shoot film and make silver gelatin prints! How do you feel about the future of the wet darkroom, and what do you think your traditional process adds to your work that a digital process might not?

The wet darkroom is just magic to me (Another intangible perhaps?). Shut yourself up in a dark room, listen to the right music, pour magic chemicals, while manipulating/creating the picture you envisioned and then watching it come to life in front of you, slowly appearing in the tray. You feel like an ancient alchemist! I don't feel any magic in front of a computer. But that's just me. The important thing in this day and age is that you have all of photo history, and all the current/past/alternative processes to select from to make the image that you envision. You select the one that works for who you are, and how you can use it to make the image you want. Ultimately, it's not about how you make the picture; it's about the journey in making it and the final product of the journey.

5. When one stands to look closely at this work, her own image as viewer is reflected back from the great black spaces in your prints - as the viewer can't help but insert herself, it suddenly becomes her secret. Is it more important to you that people access this work in their own personal way, or that your experience remains yours? How do you feel if people make up their own stories over your personal history?

Wow, to be honest, I never thought of that specifically. It certainly seems appropriate, given that while the work is based in my secrets, it seeks to acknowledge and address the individual secrets we all carry with us. It's very important to me that people look at the work this way; it's one of the reasons I don't have individual titles for the pieces in the exhibit. I think titles are ideally provided to give the audience a clue to the significant thing about the picture, to assist the viewer into the picture. In this instance, it's really not about guessing the secret being represented, it's about what the image may trigger unconsciously in the viewer about themselves. So, I think it's great when people come up and say, "you know what that says/means to me" and then tell me their story. We sharing a secret...doesn't matter whether it's mine or theirs. What matters is that we recognize the role they play in our lives.

CALL FOR WORK: National Juried Exhibition at the Steenbock Gallery

February 28 - April 8, 2011

sponsored by 

The Center for Photography at Madison.

Entry Deadline: November 15, 2010

The Center for Photography at Madison is pleased to issue the call for our first juried national exhibition at the Steenbock Gallery.  As Madison's primary photographic arts organization, we are pleased to partner with Andy Adams of FlakPhoto.com in presenting an exhibition of contemporary photography that will offer chosen photographers an opportunity to exhibit in Madison’s first gallery exclusively dedicated to the photographic arts.  Specifically designed to allow participation by all working photographers this exhibit will provide a dialogue between emerging photographers, students, professionals, educators and artists in Madison and across the country. In addition to cash prizes, the winning photographer will be awarded a future solo exhibition at the Steenbock Gallery.

Juror: Andy Adams of Flak Photo

Andy Adams is the Editor/Publisher of FlakPhoto.com, a contemporary photography website that celebrates the culture of image-making by promoting the discovery of artists from around the world.  An online art space and photography publication, the site provides opportunities for a global community of artists and photo organizations to share new series work, book projects, and gallery exhibitions with a web-based photography audience.

Recent features include 3030 Press' New Photography In China, Humble Arts Foundation's 31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography, Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine's Inside Burgerworld, the Photographic Resource Center’s EXPOSURE: The Annual PRC Juried Exhibition, Big City Press' Hijacked, Volume One: Australia andAmerica, Center's Review Santa Fe 2009, David Wright + Ethan Jones' Pause To Begin, the Center for Fine Art Photography's 2009 International Exhibition, Blurb’s Photography Book Now, and the Magenta Foundation's Flash Forward: Emerging Photographers 2009.

Calendar

Nov. 15, 2010 Entry deadline

Dec. 1, 2010 Review of works

Jan. 7, 2011 Photographers notified

Feb. 24, 2011 All work delivered to gallery

Feb. 28-April 8, 2011       Exhibition Dates

March 4, 2011(6-9pm) Opening reception

April 9, 2011 Pick up of unsold work

April 11, 2011 Shipping pick up*

*Photographer schedules pick up of work with preferred shipper.

PRIZES AND SPONSORS

FIRST PRIZE

$500 cash prize and a solo exhibition at the Steenbock Gallery in 2012.

SECOND PRIZE

$250 cash prize

THIRD PRIZE

$100 cash prize

*Honorable mentions may be awarded at juror's discretion.

All accepted works must be at the Steenbock Gallery (hand delivery or shipped) by 4:30pm on February 24. Any pieces not received by this time will not be exhibited.

All unsold works must be picked up by 12noon on April 9. All unsold works must be picked up by shippers by 4:30pm on April 11. Artists are responsible for paying and arranging their own shipping.

Any additional, detailed shipping instructions will be sent later following notification of acceptance

Upon notification of acceptance, Artist agrees to:

•provide artwork that is ready to be hung:

2D work must be prepared with hanging wire.

3D work must sit sturdily on pedestal or floor.

*arrange pick-up of unsold artwork on either April 9 (for artist or buyer pick-ups) or April 11 (by artist designated shipping company.)

SIZE AND WEIGHT No work may exceed 5 ft. in any direction or be over 50 pounds in weight.

SALES: A 30% commission will be retained by the gallery on all sold works. Work remains the property of the artist until sold.  Sold artwork shall remain in the exhibition until the close of the show. 

INSURANCE: Artists should self-insure work during transit and while on exhibit.

INVITATION AND WEBSITE One image will be chosen for the invitation cover design. Images of accepted works and profiles of selected artists will be featured at http://www.steenbockcpm.blogspot.com.

ENTRY CHECKLIST

[   ] CD: Up to 5 works submitted on CD. One jpeg per work, titled as name_number.jpg. Must be numbered to correspond with numbers on entry form. Jpegs should be 1000 pixels (minimum) In longest dimension, and at 300 dpi.

[   ] Entry form: Filled out completely and typed or printed clearly. Detach and return with CD and fee

[   ] Entry fee: Non-refundable fee of $25 payable by check, money order or cashier's check. Make payable to The Center for Photography at Madison, include Steenbock Juried Show in memo line.

[   ] SASE: Include a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return of non-accepted material. CDs will not be returned without it.

Please do not include any additional or unrequested material.

AGREEMENT Signature gives artist's consent to all conditions specified in this prospectus. Submission of your entry grants CPM permission to use your artwork or reproduction of likeness in promotional materials for this exhibition.

Signature: ____________________________

Please send form to:

The Center for Photography at Madison

attn: 2011 Steenbock Juried Exhibition

303 South Paterson Street, Suite 2E

Madison Wl 53703

The Steenbock Gallery in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences Arts & Letters.

1922 University Avenue

Madison Wl 53726

The Steenbock Gallery, sponsored and managed by the Center for Photography at Madison in partnership with the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, is dedicated to the exhibition, exploration and appreciation of the photographic arts. The Steenbock Gallery provides opportunities for photographers and curators, and serves as a forum for dialogue between artists educators, students and the public at large.

ABOUT CPM and THE WISCONSIN ACADEMY

In 2008 The Center for Photography at Madison (CPM) partnered with the Wisconsin Academy for exhibit space. CPM is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1998, and offers a broad range of educational programs, exhibitions, facilities and publications. CPM offers classes, exhibit opportunities, and a wide variety of programs at its Paterson Street location.

The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters is a non-profit organization whose goal Is to connect people and ideas from all areas of knowledge and all walks of life to celebrate thought, culture and nature in our state. The Steenbock is one of two galleries affiliated with the Academy, the other being the James Watrous Gallery.

Administration of the Steenbock Gallery makes CPM relevant and accessible to a wider audience including University of Wisconsin faculty and students. These mutually beneficial liaisons provide exhibition, curatorial, and administrative opportunities, and help make it Madison's first photo gallery devoted to the history, contemporary trends, and future expansion of photographic media and theory. Located in the Wisconsin Academy building, the Steenbock Is readily accessible to the UW campus and affiliated organizations, and the greater Madison area.

GALLERY HOURS: Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:30pm

CONTACT fNFORMATION

Phone(CPM): 608.287.1182

 (gallery): 608 263 1692

email steenbockcpm@gmail.com

blog http://www.steenbockcpm.blogspot.org

websites www.cpmad.org and www.wisconsinacademy.org

After the Reign

Interview by Madison Magazine associate editor Katie Vaughn, posted at Madison Magazine's blog on July 8 2010. When one thinks of a beauty queen, specific images come to mind: glittery gowns, coiffed hair, poise and a sparkling crown. Growing up in Louisiana, Jessie Eisner-Kleyle witnessed these and other mainstays of pageant life.But hearing a story about a queen who both embodied and defied these norms—a girl who not only wore a crown but was also a champion skinner of nutria, a large, semi-aquatic rodent—piqued the photographer’s interest in the women who participate in pageants.

Armed with her camera and an interest in gender roles, Eisner-Kleyle set out to photograph former beauty queens to explore their post-reign lives and the other, perhaps less obvious, ways they express femininity.

The series of photographs became Nutria Queens, an exhibition that’s on display through July 30 at the Steenbock Gallery. Recently, Eisner-Kleyle took some time to explain how the project came about—and what’s it’s meant to her.

How did you get the idea for Nutria Queens?

The Lake Charles American Press published an article in 1996 about a girl who was queen of the Cameron Fur and Wildlife Festival and was also a nutria skinner from a long line of skinners. Right after the parade she was in the skinning contest, and they wrote in the article about how she had to run and change out of her gown into her jeans to make it from the parade to the contest. The men in her family were the skinners, and were so proud of her, and so impressed with her talent. During my graduate studies in Wisconsin, and in my own research into gender and society, I found myself thinking more and more about that woman—wondering what she was doing these days and how she’d balanced such an extreme feminine activity as pageantry with something so decidedly un-feminine as nutria skinning. We see portraits of these queens in the paper when they’re crowned, in festival histories and Mardi Gras museums, and it’s always the same shot—a sparkly gown, huge crown, scepter and satin sash. I became more and more interested in the reality of these women.

What interested you in these former pageant contestants?

Every woman in this series, with the exception of the original queen from the article, was brought to me through friends and family; in fact, some of them are friends and family. The project had been in me for so long that when I started moving forward on it I sent emails to friends and family back home telling them what I was wanting to do and asking if they knew any former queens. I wanted to test the waters and see if there was anything there. As it turns out, everyone knows a queen! My mom worked with several queens, and my husband’s parents were part of a Mardi Gras Krewe and opened up their directory and mailed letters about my project to every queen they knew. One of my bridesmaids had worked with one of the queens at The Gap years before, and still knew how to get in touch with her and passed it on. My sister in-law’s twin is one of the queens, and her daughter is another.

Every queen that participated heard about the project secondhand and contacted me with her interest. The only queen I actively pursued was the queen from the 1996 article. I would have moved ahead with the series without her, but I don’t know how happy I would have been about it. Luckily I didn’t have to find out!

What was it like photographing these women? 

In every way this phrase can be turned, it felt like going home. Of course, I got to stay with my family and use my dad’s truck to drive around and meet these queens for sessions. But to walk in to the home of a complete stranger and be welcomed, entertained, sometimes fed (though ALWAYS hugged) is something that I’ve never found outside of southwest Louisiana, and something that I miss. That sense of welcoming familiarity was all encompassing, even in the women who had sort of missed the fact that I was originally from there and would introduce me as “the lady from Wisconsin.”

These were talkative and easygoing photo sessions. Some women met me after work and school with just their kids around, and others had houses full of family and friends curious about the project and about me. Some would sit with me for quite some time, showing me scrapbooks, driving me around their town and talking about their time as queen, before we started. Others would give me a tour of their home and we’d start shooting right away while we talked. Some made a day of it, and those shoots included airboat rides, alligator hatching, driving out to oil rigs or visiting with neighbors at the dock to see what they’d caught that day; I would shoot the entire time. I pushed each sitter to design her own session and allow me to follow behind, documenting what she would have been doing anyway, and I think that’s a big part of making each sitter comfortable and each portrait something more than those sterile queen portraits I’d seen my entire life.

What surprised you most about meeting the pageant queens and seeing what their lives were like?

I guess there’s a fine line between being surprised by something for the first time, and being reminded of something you’ve always known.

How easy these women were in front of a camera, talking to a total stranger about their life and their work, their history and their plans for the future was a constant shock, though that may be something I’ve forgotten by being out of the South. While some were decked out and completely made up for the camera, others wore jeans and T-shirts and just rolled with it. That casual attitude surprised me, especially coming from women who were, essentially, in this project based on their ability to plan and prep.

The funniest thing was that when I picked up a camera, regardless of if she’d reigned one or twenty years before, these women still knew how to turn it on for a camera. It was a constant struggle to get them to ignore me!

Did being involved in pageants still have an impact on the women?

There were some who knew each other, not personally, but from being in the pageant world. Several were curious about the other queens and wanted to know what I did for the shoots with other subjects. Sometimes they were a little critical about what I’d done with other queens; is that quickness to rate and judge left over from pageants? I don’t know.

One woman, when she spoke to me about her time as queen, consistently said “bride” instead of “queen.” She’d gotten married decades before in a suit at City Hall, so her dress for the Krewe was the most formal dress she’d ever owned and was, in fact, a redesigned and dyed wedding dress. Her portrait from her 1980s crowning still hung above the mantel in her living room, so I’d say she was impacted daily by her time as queen. Keep in mind, though, that for each queen who kept her regalia at arm’s length, there was another who had delivered 10,000 babies in her career, had a hospital wing named after her and couldn’t have cared less about her time as queen.

The one trait that each queen shared with the next was her gracious manner, her ability to talk about her life and open herself up to a stranger and, like I mentioned earlier, to be completely at ease in front of a camera, or at least look like she was. I have to think that grace under pressure is a great side effect of pageant life.

How significant is it that these women are from Louisiana? In what ways does the setting shape this project?

In the trajectory that the project has taken, it’s vital. This project would never have been seeded had I not read that article. Louisiana is a strange and fascinating place, and the rules that govern our behavior are bizarre, so without that upbringing would I have been so attuned to the oddities of societal norms once I left? Seven years after leaving, I still qualify some of my behaviors by telling a story about how we do it down home.

Once the project was going, would I have found a population so quick to spread the project by word of mouth, so eager to let me back in, and so proud of their lives that they could stand unflinchingly in front of a camera and tell that story? I can’t say no definitely, but I doubt it. My Midwestern portrait projects often found me trying to calm wary and anxious women who were suspicious of what I was doing with these portraits, and I encourage that—I would never let a stranger photograph my children or me without subjecting them to extensive interviews and background checks!! But every one of these queens opened their doors to me and shrugged me off as I told them about my release forms. They trusted me from the get go and that encouraged the project every step of the way.

Every background tells a story. The coastal landscape is identifiable to anyone who’s ever walked a shoreline made of broken concrete. The sky during that rainy week was perfect, not only for lighting photographs but for setting a scene, and the color of grass or water or sky in Louisiana is a huge part of what visually defines that place. That color and density is something that I’ve missed in my years in the Midwestern prairie. Even the interior shots tell stories, and every woman gave me a tour of her new rooms that had been rebuilt after [Hurricane] Rita.

How did your interest in fairy tales come into play in working on this series of photographs?  My interest in fairy tales came from the stories I was told in Louisiana. That eventually formed my interest in gender roles as taught through childhood literature. While I didn’t start this series to be based equally on portraits and interviews, like I have in some of my other portrait series, I definitely interviewed these women during the process. Our fairy tales were passed down orally by women who knew that those stories would teach values to the next generations and were eventually collected and written down by men who knew that their culture would be fortified by these tales. Those stories of the people were entrusted with the continuation of a culture. When you have to rebuild so often, your stories and your culture become your home, and the place you can return to. When your heirlooms are carried away by wind, you replace those objects with stories. When the home you grew up in washes away, you hold your history tighter. As we all migrate from home and start our own families, we find ourselves grounded and refreshed by our personal mythologies. The culture of Louisiana is rooted in migration, rebuilding and finding home wherever you can. I’ve learned that in this series, the viewer appreciates the imagery, but WANTS the stories. Though I didn’t at the time of the shoots, I absolutely see a correlation between reinforcing the values of your past while protecting your future in the stories you pass down, and I see it in both current day Louisiana and seventeenth-century Germany.

What questions do you hope this exhibition raises in viewers’ minds? What do you hope they get from seeing your work?

Of course, I want there to be a constant concern for the Gulf Coast and its residents as we become increasingly careless with our planet. I want you to look at these images, at the people that thrive there and connect your own life with those in Louisiana. Then write to your politicians, and protect what’s precious.

But this wasn’t intended to be a public service announcement, nor was it intended to raise pity for the people of my home. This work was made in celebration, not of the beauty of these women or of how lovely they look in an evening gown, but of their strength, and of how smart and resilient they are. Every single one of them is an expert at something that may surprise you. Each of these women is, yes, a former beauty queen, but that was one year of her life. Every day in and outside of that year she is a mother, a daughter, a sister, a doctor, a teacher, an advocate, a rodeo champion, a builder, a hunter, an entrepreneur and, of course, an extremely fast nutria skinner. Her time as queen was a major life event, but it didn’t define her life.

I want people, from seeing any of my work, to question the way society has taught them to react to gender. Is there something you do just because it’s expected of your gender? Some way that you behave? Some value you place on yourself based on nothing more than your gender? What about in how you look at the people around you?

Coincidentally, one of the queens moved to France last week. She had emailed, during a prior visit, that she loved France because she didn’t have to wear makeup every day. I reminded her that there was no American law that required a woman to wear makeup and she should absolutely do what made her happy, especially with her face! We’re limited by ourselves and by what we think we’re supposed to do, but I do think we’d be a lot happier if we more often did what felt right, and not always what society and our gender tell us we have to.

Nutria Queens runs through July 30 at Steenbock Gallery, 1922 University Ave.  For more information, visit wisconsinacademy.org.

Photos courtesy of Jessie Eisner-Kleyle. 

An associate editor at Madison Magazine, I'm also an unabashed arts enthusiast. Paintings, plays, music, movies—I'm intrigued by all forms of creative expression. I enjoy talking with artists and sharing their insights, challenges and inspirations.