Seeing Portland - 1970 to 1984

THAT '70S SHOW | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

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THAT '70S SHOW | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Show Invitation

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Show Announcement

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Seeing Portland – 1970 to 1984

Photographs of a pre-technological, pre-gentrified place

Initiated by photographer Andy Graham's rediscovery of a set of transparencies from 1975 taken in the Kennedy Park housing development, the show brings together the work of Tom Brennan, C.C. Church, Andy Graham, Rose Marasco, Joe Muir, Mark Rockwood, Jeff Stevensen, Jay York and Todd Webb. Co-curated by Andy Graham, Anne Riesenberg and Keith Fitzgerald of Zero Station, the show opens on April 10 and runs through May 1 at Zero Station. Opening reception 5 – 8PM April 10^th.

Curator's Statements

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Seeing Portland – 1970 to 1984

I remember years ago in the midst of winnowing my belongings before a move, coming across a favorite old flannel shirt that had belonged to an almost boyfriend. I was aware as I considered whether to toss or keep, that by throwing it away I was losing that link between the present and the past. Without the shirt it would be harder to remember, easier to forget, all of what it had meant to me to know that person - what it felt like to be me, holding his hand, walking a street in springtime, being 19, a bubble of hope in my chest pushing up from the inside, an impulse towards experience, towards discovery in every step, a lingering innocence. Looking at these photographs is like holding that shirt in my hands. So much floods in that is intangible, inaccessible without a sensory cue. Because they document Portland as it was, these images take us back to who we were when we saw it that way, and the fabric of our history is revealed, opens up like a box of treasures. Savor them and you savor what has come before, catching a glimpse of the mechanisms of memory as they build up and become the past.

If this is not the Portland of your past hopefully these images will help you get to know her more intimately, like hearing stories from a grandparent about what it was like to be young. Perhaps you can't quite grasp what they mean, but deep in your bones you know it has something to do with you.

Anne Riesenberg

Andy Graham’s Curator Statement

In 1975 I was a student in the Art Department of the University of Portland-Gorham (now USM). I came to Portland in the Summer of 1974, and attached myself to this city that was just beginning to awake. Juris Ubans had the Film Study Center, the only venue for foreign films in Portland, showing 16mm prints of Claude Chabrol movies to an audience of 25 or so in an upper Exchange Street building that was usually home to the Ram Island Dance Center. The Italian bread (the only ethnic bread) was doughy and white. The first Old Port Festival was still in the future. There were few people of color. It was before technology began to change us, before cable TV, when Portland had both a daily morning and an afternoon newspaper.

Greil Marcus’ phrase “the old weird America” was on my mind as I gathered images for this show, originally titled Portland in the Seventies. Portland, when people shopped on Congress St and the Old Port was derelict, had little culture and few aspirations. Urban renewal had knocked some buildings down and built highways through the city, but few people thought about what was being lost to the pressure of development and the unstoppable plan to push Portland into a new, prosperous future. Portland Landmarks focused on the integrity of West End mansions, not downtown or Munjoy Hill.

I looked for other photographers who looked at the city as I had, with warmth and appreciation for both the new and the old. I looked for serious photographers. I looked for technical excellence. All of these images were made using a large negative or positive – 2 ¼, 4x5, and 8x10. They are printed in a variety of ways; some vintage silver fiber prints, some black and white or color inkjet prints, and some c-prints made through a digital workflow. Missing are images made by photographers who may have passed through Portland and recorded it during this time, or photographers like Richard Procopio, whose archive remains unopened.

Part of the fun of this show is seeing the old buildings and the old places, seeing what remains, how it has changed and how it has remained the same. Please comment, append, reminisce, and enjoy. And be encouraged to record the commonplace in our city along with the unusual. None of us photographers expected the role that these images now have in recording the story of Portland.

Thomas Brennan's Statement, Technical Info, and Bio

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I came down from Presque Isle in 1975 to attend the University of Maine at Portland Gorham. My teacher at what would be re-named USM was Richard Procopio, the model for my own teaching over the past 30 years. At the time that I took the three black and white photographs in this show I had been working with Juris Ubans on the third of his Library of Congress shows, a 50 print survey of Walker Evans' photographs from the 1930's. It is clear that Evans' approach to pictorial space was a principal preoccupation when I made these three photographs. To walk through the same spaces today it is striking to realize how the content (and documentary value) of the three images continues to change, as they become less of the present and more of the past.

The black and white photographs are archival pigment prints on Crane paper from scanned 4 x 5 Plus-X film shot with a Calumet camera and a 90 mm Schneider lens. "Congress Street at St. John" and "Preble Street" were taken on October 2nd, 1978 (Sox trivia alert). "Monument Square" is from1978, taken from the Time and Temperature building. I don't believe that I was on the roof, it is more likely that I walked into someone's office and asked permission to photograph from that vantage point.

The color photograph is dated 1978, taken with a Diana camera using Kodacolor film, scanned and printed on Crane paper.

Since 1989 I have been a teacher at the University of Vermont. I can be reached at tbrennan@uvm.edu.

Thomas Brennan's Images

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C.C. Church's Bio, Titles and Technical Info, and Exhibit Lists

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C.C. Church Bio

C.C. Church's photographs have long been admired for their aesthetic beauty and spiritual content. Berenice Abbott recognized his talent when she judged a group of several hundred photographs for an exhibit, "Photographing Maine." One of the few she selected was C.C.'s "Boy with Bird," a sensitive portrait of his young son gently holding a homing pigeon. Later, she asked him to live at her home in Blanchard, Maine, as her photographic assistant. While there he helped print her iconic images of New York, and the negatives for the Eugene Atget Portfolio. He became familiar with the artist and her life as they lingered over breakfast while the upstairs studio warmed on cold winter mornings.

Church is a native of Portland, Maine. His unique and personal vision is evident in all his works. His body of work captures his views of Portland, the vanishing rural Maine landscape and warm and personal nudes. His subjects, while easily identifiable, are merely familiar touchstones for the viewer. Church's vision transcends the obvious and ordinary and infuses his subject with mystery. Underneath lies the abstraction and technical ability that is never contrived or pretentious. They are exquisite works because of the artist's skill and wide-ranging knowledge of his craft. His art is enriched by his deep interest and familiarity with classic art, mythology, and culture. As a longtime devotee and reader of the books by James Joyce, he finds inspiration in the richness of Joyce’s language and imagery. Church's vision cannot be explained in words. He translates his feelings about life to his work. If the viewers linger, over time, they will see a world that he reveals to us.

Titles and Technical Information

322 Commercial Street, Spring 1974 (4x5 camera)

345 Cumberland Avenue, 1977 (8x10 camera)

Bartlett Radio, 181 Bracket Street, ca. 1970 (4x5 camera)

Million Dollar Bridge, crossing Commercial Street, 1978 (4x5 Polaroid P/N film)

Century Tire Company, back of garage, Kennebec Street, 1978 (4x5 camera)

H. H. Hay Building, Congress Square, 1979 (8x10 camera)

Pawn shop (corner of Temple Street and Middle Street), 1973 (4x5 camera)

414 Fore Street, ca. 1970 (4x5 camera)

Maine Furniture & Storage Company, corner of Danforth Street and Maple Street, 1978 (4x5 Polaroid P/N film)

Lower Hay Building, Free and Middle Streets, 1977 (8x10 camera)

Longfellow Barber Shop, 664 Congress Street, Longfellow Square, ca.1970 (4x5 camera)

Hotel under renovation to become housing, Congress Street and Forest Avenue, 1980 (4x5 camera)

Zeitman's Grocery Store, 336 Fore Street, 1979 (4x5 camera)

Left two: Zeitman brothers, center: unknown person, right: Bob the Barber

A. R. Wright Coal & Oil, Forest Avenue, ca. 1970 (4x5 camera)

Union Lunch sign on building on Temple Street or Union Street, 1973 (4x5 camera)

Looking up Silver Street toward Middle Street from Milk Street, 1978 (8x10 camera)

Building on lower Free Street, (“? ? Shack” on sign) 1977 (8x10 camera)

Monument Square, (Looking out the window of my 16 Monument Square studio.) 1978 (8x10 camera)

I use a tripod mounted 4x5 or 8x10 inch camera; although, the Longfellow Barber Shop may have been taken with a Speed Graphic hand-held 4x5 camera.

All photographs were taken with a small aperture - f 32. For photographs with people, the exposure was adjusted for faster shutter speed, at least 1/60 second.

Most of the photographs were taken using medium speed film, Kodak Plus-X, developed in Kodak D-76 or later with HC-110. For two photographs I used Polaroid 4x5 Positive/Negative film.

C. C. CHURCH

EXHIBITS:

1969 One-man: Gorham Art Gallery, Gorham College, Gorham, Maine

University of Maine, Orono, Maine

1970 One-man: Walker Art Museum, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine

University of New Hampshire, Durham, N.H.

Wesleyan Hills Art Association, Middletown, Conn.

University of Maine at Portland, Portland, Maine

Westbrook College, Portland, Maine

Included in: Temple Beth El Art Festival, Portland, Maine

1971 One-man: State Street Church, Portland, Maine

Ten Oak Gallery, Springvale, Maine

Roberts Union Gallery, Colby College, Waterville, Maine

1972 One-man: Frost Gully Gallery, Freeport, Maine

Included in: Temple Beth El Art Festival, Portland, Maine

1973 Included in: “Photography Maine ‘73,” Maine State Museum, Augusta, Maine

1974 One-man: Ten Oak Gallery, Springvale, Maine

1975 Included in: “Photography Maine ‘75,” Colby College Museum, Maine

“Photovision ‘75 - New England Photographers”

Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Mass.

1978 One-man: “Photographers in Maine” series, Westbrook College, Portland

– other photographers in series: Todd Webb, Berenice Abbott.

“36 Polaroid Images,” Portland Public Library, Maine

1979 Included in: “25 Maine Photographers,” University of Maine, Orono, Maine

“Photo as Document,” California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

“Polaroid SX-70,” University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine

1980 One-man: Lewis Gallery, Portland Public Library, Portland, Maine

Included in: “Maine Photographers” Westbrook College, Portland, Maine

“Never Fail Image” The School of the Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston, Mass.

1981 One-man: University of Maine, Orono, Maine

Included in: “All Maine Biennial,” Art Gallery, USM, Gorham, Maine

Portland School of Art Alumni Show –Best of Show Award

1982 One-man: Governor’s Exhibit - Hall of Flags, State House, Augusta, Maine

Three-man: with Andy Ford and Michael Rowell, “Photographs of Portland,”

Gorham Art Gallery, USM, Gorham, Maine

Included in: Juried show at the Walt Kuhn Gallery, Cape Neddick Park, Maine

“Some People Say We Look Like Sisters,” School of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

“Maine Festival of the Arts,” Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine

Selected and printed 125 photographs from the negative files (1935-1955) of Guy Gannet Publishing Co. for an exhibit: “People and Places of Portland” at the Portland Public Library, Portland, Maine

1983 One-man: Barn Gallery, Ogunquit, Maine

Included in: Portland School of Art Juried Alumni Show, Portland, Maine

Juried show at the Walt Kuhn Gallery, Cape Neddick Park, Maine

–First Prize - Color and B&W.

Two-man: with J. Thomas Higgins-painter, University of Maine at Farmington

1984 - 2004 On staff of Portland Press Herald, photo department

2000 Included in: “Photographing Maine 1840 –2000,” Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport

2004 Group Show: “Diversity,” Galeyrie Framing, Falmouth, Maine

2006 Included in: The Maine Photography Show, Boothbay Harbor, Maine

2008 Included in: “The Sands of Time,” L/A Arts Gallery 5, Lewiston, Maine.

The Maine Photography Show, Boothbay Harbor, Maine

First Prize: Photography, Bridgton Art in the Park, Bridgton, Maine

2009 Included in: “Figures and Portraits,” Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, Vermont

2010 Included in: “The Landscape,” Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, Vermont

COLLECTIONS:

Polaroid International Collection, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine

Westbrook College, Portland, Maine

Various private collections

C.C. Church's Images

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C.C. Church's Images

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C.C. Church's Images

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C.C. Church's Images

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Andy Graham's Statement

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Artist Statement

These images were all made one afternoon in early Spring, 1975. Influenced by my artist brother, Dan Graham, I went to Kennedy Park and Munjoy South, low-income housing complexes on Munjoy Hill, to make minimalist photographs with my Bronica S2A 2 ¼ camera on a tripod. Color photography was unaccepted in the art world, and the first significant color photography exhibit, William Eggleston at MOMA, was highly controversial in 1976. When I tried to make my ‘arty’ photos of the architecture, the kids hanging around kept saying “hey – take MY picture”. So I did. Rediscovering and finally printing these dusty images is enormously satisfying. I am transported back to my early days in Portland, and the innocence that was me at 23 and Portland in 1975.

Technical Info: Ektachrome, Bronica S2A, 60mm lens.

Andy Graham

Andy Graham's Images

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Andy Graham's Images

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Rose Marasco Artist Statement, Titles, Bio, and CV

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Rose Marasco Photo Collages/Photomontages, 1981

In 1981, I was living on Pine Street in Portland (having moved here in 1979) about a block away from my current home. Then, everything was new to my eyes and by extension, my camera.

When I wasn’t teaching, I walked the streets photographing – first on the Western Prom, and then into the West End neighborhoods. I came home to my make shift darkroom and went to work. One night looking at 2 photos, (what became montage #1 Carleton Street), I remember thinking “they look like they would go together if I cut them.” I literally did just that, right then. I posted up on my studio wall, stared at it for a little bit, whoever came over checked it out, and within a few days I committed to making more. It was great fun. I didn’t plan, just shot intuitively. I made 2 sets of contact sheets (of these medium format negatives), cut one up and composed the pieces.

Here is what I wrote in 1982 when the work was exhibited at the Portland School of Art, Photo Gallery:

The perception of reality is more about what one brings to it than what is there. The making of photographs is more about what one takes from it than what is there.

What strikes me today and what is still of interest to me, is the notion of perception in a photography, and the way memory is linked and informs our perceptions. This, and what I call “ photo space ” have continued throughout my bodies of work and are very present in my current photographs.

For Seeing Portland: 1972-1984, I am exhibiting six of the twelve original one of a kind collages. Previously I exhibited the montages, though I have never had a favorite, and still do not. I am delighted to be included in this significant exhibition; and to bring this work back out into the dialogue, post-Photoshop.

Rose Marasco –Titles/Captions

1. Rose Marasco, Carleton Street House – Photo College, unique print from the Photomontage series, 1981-82

2. Rose Marasco, Western Promenade /Eastern Promenade – Photo College, unique print from the Photomontage series, 1981-82

3. Rose Marasco, 87 Pine Street (front)– Photo College, unique print from the Photomontage series, 1981-82

4. Rose Marasco, 87 Pine Street (rear )– Photo College, unique print from the Photomontage series, 1981-82

5. Rose Marasco,Pine Street Row Houses Backyard – Photo College, unique print from the Photomontage series, 1981-82

6. Rose Marasco, Carroll and Brackett Street – Photo College, unique print from the Photomontage series, 1981-82

ROSE MARASCO - Biography

Rose Marasco’s photographs have been exhibited in significant solo and group exhibitions, most notably– at The Sarah Morthland Gallery, NYC; The Davis Museum, Wellesley College; The Farnsworth Museum of Art; The Portland Museum of Art; Bowdoin College Museum of Art; and, Smith College Museum of Art .

Public collections include: The Fogg Museum; The Davis Museum at Wellesley College; New York Public Library; and, National Museum of American History. Marasco’s work has been reviewed in, the New Yorker, New York, and, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, Art New England, and numerous times in The Portland Phoenix, and Maine Sunday Telegram.

Marasco has a B.F.A. from Syracuse University and a M.F.A. from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. Marasco has lectured at many institutions including Harvard University, Bates College, Colby College, Massachusetts College of Art, and Parsons School of Design. Marasco was awarded the 2005 Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award from the Santa Fe Center for Photography. She is a Professor of Art at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine.

ROSE MARASCO www.rosemarasco.com info@rosemarasco.com

selected: SOLO EXHIBITIONS

upcoming: 2010-11 Projections, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, Texas

2010 New England Diary, Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, New York

2008 The Invented Photograph, Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France

2004-05 Domestic Objects: Past and Presence, University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine;

Southwest Harbor Public Library; University of Maine Museum of Art; University of Maine at Farmington

2003 Circles, Sarah Morthland Gallery, New York

2002 Open House: Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

2000 Leafing, Sarah Morthland Gallery, New York, New York

1998 New England Diary, Sarah Morthland Gallery, New York, New York

1995 Tender Buttons: Women’s Domestic Objects, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, MA

1992-93 Ritual and Community: The Maine Grange, Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine; University of Maine

Presque Isle; University of Maine Farmington; University of Maine Machias: University of Southern Maine,

Gorham, Maine; University of Maine, Orono, Maine

1989 Perspectives: Religious Imagery, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

selected: GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010 Seeing Portland: 1972-1984, Zero Station, Portland, Maine

2009 Photography In Maine, University of New England, Portland, Maine

2008 The New Recyclists, Whitney Art Works, Portland, Maine

2006 The Way Life Is, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

2005 The Long View: Selections from the Norma B. Marin Collection, University of Maine Museum of Art

2003 Photographing Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts

2002 Past- Present-Future, 50 Year Anniversary Exhibit, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine

2001 Domestic Culture: Home in Visual Culture, Institute of Contemporary Art at MeCA, Portland, Maine

2000 Marasco & Underhill, Kirkland Art Center, Clinton, New York

1999 Snapshot, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

1998 Still Lifes / Prints & Photographs, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

1998 Memorable Histories And Historic Memories, Bowdoin College Museum, Brunswick, Maine

1993 Process and Product, Bromfield Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts

1992 Polaroid Exhibition, Level 3 Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1992 Exhibition of Photography, The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts

1989 Selections 4: Photokina ‘88, Polaroid International Exhibition, Cologne, Germany; Victoria and Albert

Museum, London, England: Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne, Switzerland; Kunstalle-Hamburg, Germany;

the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela

selected: FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND AWARDS

2005 Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award, Santa Fe Center for Photography

2001-02 Open House Grant, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

1992 Exhibition of the Year, New England Historical Association, Worcester, Massachusetts

1990-92 Major Grant, Maine Humanities Council, Portland, Maine, for Ritual and Community:The Maine Grange

1990 Individual Artists Fellowship, Maine Arts Commission, Maine

1985 MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Peterborough, New Hampshire

selected: CRITICAL RESPONSE

Maine Home + Design magazine, Portland, Maine, featured photographer, August, 2008

Photo District News magazine, New York, NY, “ The Portfolio Review Diaries: The Reviewer’s

Reflections” by Debra Klomp Ching, highlighted photographer, July, 2008

Quest France, “An American Photographer at The University- Brest ” May 3, 2008

Art New England, featured artist/interview by Lauren Fensterstock, Dec./Jan., 2005-06

Maine Sunday Telegram, “Marasco’s Photos Speak to Intimacy”, review by Philip Isaacson, February 22, 2004

The Portland Phoenix, “ A Colored Place,” cover story, exhibition review, by Chris Thompson, February 6, 2004

Maine Sunday Telegram, “Photographer Evokes Complexity from Everyday,” by Bob Keyes, February 1, 2004

Undomesticated Interiors, essays by Aprile Gallant and Mimi Hellman, Smith College Museum of Art, 2003

Dear Print Fan: A Festschrift for Marjorie B. Cohn, essay by Deborah Martin Kao, Not Unordered: Rose

Marasco’s Tender Buttons, Harvard University Art Museums, 2001

New York Resident, “West Side Story”, exhibition review by Chris MacLeod, November 6, 2000

Antique and The Arts Weekly, “Leafing”, exhibition review, Nov. 3, 2000

New York magazine, March 2, 1998, text and photograph

The New Yorker, “Goings On About Town,” Feb. 23, 1998, extended text

The New York Times, exhibition review by Margarett Loke, February 20, 1998

The Village Voice, exhibition review by Vince Aletti, February 4 -10, 1998

The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society, by Lucy R. Lippard, 1997

The New Press, New York, New York

The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Endpaper,” May 26,1995, text and image

The Boston Sunday Globe, Exhibition review by Christine Temin, May 14,1995

Views: The Journal of Photography in New England, “Ritual and Community”, Vol. 13-4/14-1, Winter 1993

Art New England, “Ritual and Community” review by Shirley Jacks, June/July 1992

Maine Sunday Telegram, “Ritual and Community,” by Greg Gadberry, March 1, 1992

Maine Times, “Ritual and Community,” review by Edgar Allen Beem, Vol. 24, No. 23, March 13, 1992

Maine Sunday Telegram, “Featured Artists: Maine’s Year in the Arts,” December 31, 1989

Maine Times, “Exhibitions of the Year,” by Edgar Allen Beem, Vol. 22, No. 11, Dec. 15, 1989

Art New England, “Perspectives,” review by William David Barry, June 1989

selected: PUBLIC LECTURES

2009 University of New England “Photography in Maine” exhibition Gallery talk, Portland, Maine

2008 The Invented Photograph, Gallery talk, Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France

2008 École Supérieure d’Arts de Brest – ESAB Brest, France “The Photographs of Rose Marasco”

2005 Women in Photography: A Symposium, Portland Museum of Art

2004 Domestic Objects Symposium, in conjunction with exhibition, University of Southern Maine

Organized symposium with historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, poet Charles Simic, and art historian Kim Grant

2001 Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York, “Multiplicity and Simplicity”

2000 Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, Maine, Artists’ Gathering: Rose Marasco

1999 Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Light Conversations: Seminars with Contemporary Photographers

1999 Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, “Rose Marasco, Personal Work”

1998 Port Washington Public Library, Port Washington, New York, “Rose Marasco, Personal Work”

1997 Mytilene Photographic Society, Lesvos, Greece, “Rose Marasco, Personal Work”

1997 Parsons School of Design, New York, New York, “Rose Marasco, Personal Work”

1996 Westbrook College, Portland, Maine, Todd Webb, Photographer in Context: A Symposium

1995 SALT Conference on Documentary Photography, Portland Museum of Art, “Rose Marasco, Personal Work”

1995 Davis Museum and Cultural Center, “Tender Buttons: Women’s Domestic Objects”

1992 New England Museum Association and Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, Albany, New York

Annual conference: Artists and the Community

1992 Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine, Gallery talk, Ritual and Community

1989 Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, Gallery talk, Religious Imagery

selected: PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine

Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Farnsworth Museum of Art, Rockland, Maine

Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, Boston, Massachusetts

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Polaroid International Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts

The New York Public Library Photography Collection, New York, New York

The Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Augusta, Maine

Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island

University of New England, Portland, Maine

University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine

current position: PROFESSOR OF ART, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE

Rose Marasco Images

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Rose Marasco Images

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Joe Muir Bio and Images

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Joe Muir was born in Goshen, Indiana and studied art, photography and music before moving to Maine to work with photographer Bernice Abbott. Besides printing her work Joe also printed the glass plates of Eugene Atget. In the early 1980s Joe began doing printing and airbrush retouching for commercial photographers and advertising agencies. In 1989 he started a business called the Black and White Image, which is still in operation in Portland. The business specializes in all types of digital image work including photo restoration and duplication. His clients include Verner Reed, Todd Webb and George Daniell. Recent projects include printing for a large show for the New York Public Library entitled "Life is Complicated", by photographer Robin Bowman and the complete restoration of a recently discovered collection of 1880s documentary photographs taken in the arctic. This work was done for the Institute of New Hampshire Studies at Plymouth State University. This body of work resulted in an exhibition and is currently being made into a book.

Mark Rockwood Artist Statement and Note

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n the spring of 1969 I came to Portland from the midwest to go to art school. Up the street from the school was Bicknell’s Photo Service. I bought my first camera used there. I stepped out the door and began shooting. Though I’ve spent the last 29 years doing commercial photography for a living, I have spent the past 41years shooting personal work on the streets, where ever I have lived and traveled. Though I worked to get Bachelors and Masters degrees in photography, it was shooting on the street that shaped my vision and direction throughout my photo life.

Mark Rockwood

Note:

Almost all the images were shot on Munjoy Hill in 1973. The only exceptions are BlueCross From Congress which is downtown same year and Len's Market which was 1974 and the corner of Cumberland and High streets.

Mark Rockwood Images

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Mark Rockwood Images

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Mark Rockwood Images

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Mark Rockwood Images

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Mark Rockwood Images

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Mark Rockwood Images

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Jeffrey Stevensen Artist Statement, Captions, and Biography

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Photography And Transformation

The photographs in this show are drawn from a body of work documenting Portland, particularly the old waterfront, in the 1980’s. Most of my photographs of this project were created with an 8x10 view camera as an inexorable demand of the subject matter. Within the boundaries of its unique physical and technical demands, the 8x10 lends itself to a rigorous, even formal, approach to composition. Its capability for hyper-real description is an integral part of this vision. The rich and lyric beauty of photographic tone and detail stands in sometimes ironic counterpoint to a cast-off environment in transition.

My approach to this subject matter was documentary and more, to infuse my personal vision into the project. The choice of where to point my camera conformed to no purely historical hierarchy. I photographed that which struck my eye, and assumed that the totality of my photographs would convey the larger truth of the subject. Like Atget, I found a landscape inhabited by absence. What I sought to capture was a sense of forces gathered, change poised in the breath-hold of a moment. Over many weeks I scouted subjects and waited patiently for the right promise in a day’s light and sky. Stratospheric clouds – evanescent in portent – hover over these wharves, piers, and industrial detritus. Mystery beckons within the image frame, transformed and clarified by the camera, tantalizing yet elusive in the unfolding of time.

– Jeffrey Stevensen

Notes on Photos

Merchants Wharf, Portland Sebago Ice, 7/1983

Late afternoon, 355mm lens, f/45.

Portland “PhoenixWalls” Diptych, 6/1979 and 2/1981

The term “Phoenix Walls” was chosen for implications of new life growing from the ashes. With the Sulky Lounge, this is literally true. Both photographs were made with a Sinar 4x5 camera and 90mm Schneider Angulon f/6.8 lens at f/22, deep yellow #12 filter.

Shurtleff Salt and Chemical company, TornShed, 8/1983

I was attracted to the tears in the sheet metal facade, which seemed incongruously soft, and the unusual clouds. My lens, a Caltar 210mm f/5.6, was a wide angle on 8x10 with no movements, barely covering the corners at infinity and f/22. Since I could not use a front standard rise, my only choice was to tilt the camera and accept the perspective distortion in the brick building. Deep yellow #12 filter, f/32.

VinnyCavanaugh In His Boat Shop, Merchants Wharf, 1/1982

Vinny Cavanaugh had a boat shop at the end of Merchants Wharf. I was poking around and set up the camera to shoot the end of the wharf, his shop. He invited me inside to talk a bit and take a look around. As soon as I walked in I knew I had to shoot his portrait. The shop was such an interesting mix of old, time-worn elements incongruously decorated with posters popular in college dormitories. Vinny sat in his chair at my request and picked up a bottle of some inexpensive whiskey, which he cradled comically in his arms with a wise-guy expression. I made that shot, then asked him to set the bottle aside for a shot. I took it from his arms, and he settled back with a most vulnerable expression on his face, as though he felt exposed without a shield. It was a very poignant moment. Sinar 8x10, 210mm Caltar, 1 second exposure at f/11 or f/16.

Warehouse, Inc,10/1982

“Plas” was a tag artist common in the old port at this time. The building façade lent itself to a very formal composition, and the tag breaks the rigidity imposed. Deardorf 8x10. I believe the lens used was a 240mm G Claron, typically stopped to f/32 or f/45.

Further Technical Information:

Film used for all 8x10: tri-x pan professional, tray developed in HC-110, printed on Oriental Seagull and Ilford Multigrade, Dektol and custom-mixed paper developers, selenium toned, archivally washed.

Biography

Jeffrey Stevensen has over thirty years experience in fine art and commercial photography. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Photography from Syracuse University, 1974.

Photography, the Language of Light, is Jeff’s vocation, and has been his passion since he had his first darkroom in eighth grade. His point of view is that the world is a marvelous place, and it is his life’s work to capture and communicate that marvel with the camera – to make visual magic. His fine art work embraces the finest traditions of film photography and today’s digital media. Jeff is a master printer well known for the evocative beauty of his silver and gicleé prints. His photographs resonate with a charged sense of place and moment.

From Maine to Malaysia, Jeff’s assignment work has taken him throughout the United States and abroad for Fortune 500 companies, advertising agencies, architects, designers and magazines.

His work is held in private collections in the U.S. and Japan. Of particular note is the publication of the limited-edition portfolio THE WHITEBOOK, Nascence Press, 1989.

Jeffrey resides in Cape Elizabeth with his family.

Jeffrey Stevensen Images

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Jeffrey Stevensen Images

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Todd Webb Images

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Todd Webb

Jay York Titles and Artist Statement

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Zakarian Van, 61 Center Street, 1978

Popkins Zakarian as a Portland City Councilor in 1967 was an outspoken critic of the proposed Model Cities Program. That program was responsible for the "urban renewal" that demolished large swaths of residential neighborhoods in Portland. This lot currently is used for parking and is to the west side of Brian Boru.

Laundry Lines, 37 Pleasant Street, 1978

I passed by this scene almost every day on my way to and from the Portland School of Art. The building these lines were attached to was a brick rooming house built in 1900 that had been converted to apartments. The building and the people who lived there always reminded me of the photographs of the "big city" tenement houses. It was converted to six condominiums in 2008.

Artist Statement

Jay York lives and works in the Last Church on the Left at 58 Wilmot Street in Portland's Bayside neighborhood. He has been providing photographic services to artists, galleries, and museums for the last 22 years. He has also been photographing family and friends since 1965 when his mother and father paid for all his film processing.

Resume

Jay York 58 Wilmot Street Portland, ME 04101 207 774-9600

Education

1970-1974 Kennebunk High School

Summer 1975 Maine Photographic Workshop

1976-1980 Portland School of Art (Maine College of Art)

Experience

1973-1974 Founding member of Salt Magazine, Kennebunk, Maine

1977-1982 Deli 1, 34 Exchange Street, Portland, Maine

1982-1988 Lab manager at Maine Color Service, Portland

1988-present Owner / operator Jay York Photography

1989-1992 Board of Directors, WMPG Radio

1990-1992 Board of Directors, Children's Co-Op, Portland

1994-2006 Board of Trustees, Maine College of Art

1994-present Ski Instructor at Mt. Abram, Greenwood, Maine

1995-1997 Board of Directors, Monhegan Artists’ Residency

Corporation, Monhegan Island, Maine

1996-2001 Board of Directors, St. Lawrence Arts & Community Center

1999-2006 Bayside Neighborhood Association Steering Committee

1999 Photojournalism instructor, Saint Joseph’s College, Standish, Maine

1999-2007 Portland Public Art Committee

2000-2005 Bayside Development Committee

2003 Photography instructor, University of New England

Exhibitions

2007 "Both Sides of the Camera: Photographs from the

Collection of Judith Ellis Glickman", Portland Museum of

Art

2006 "Maine: The Way Life Is", Portland Museum of Art

2002 “Artist of Bayside”, Three Fish Gallery, Portland, Maine

2000 “Photographing Maine, 1840-2000” Maine Coast Artists

1999 MECA Alumni Exhibition, Institute of Contemporary Art

Portland, Maine

1997 “Jewelers & Photographers”, MECA Alumni Show

Davidson & Daughters, Portland, Maine

1995 “Familiar Moments” New Photographs by Jay York &

Katie Fagan, Dead Space Gallery, Portland, Maine

“Photography: The State of the Art”, Round Top Center

for the Arts, Damariscotta, Maine

Thos. Moser, 699 Madison Ave. New York City

1994 One person show, University of New England

Biddeford, Maine

Maine Coast Artists Annual Exhibition, Rockport, Maine

1994 Maine College of Art Alumni, Baxter Gallery

Portland, Maine

1993 “Familiar Photos” New Work by Jay York,

Photography Co-Op, Portland, Maine

1993 “Shadows of Forgotten Relationships”, Photography Co-Op, Portland, Maine

One person show, Saint Joseph’s College, Windham, Maine

1992 Small Works Show, Union of Maine Visual Artists Gallery, Brunswick, Maine

“Jay York : Photographer”, Hard Ware Gallery

Peaks Island, Maine

“Images of Dead Animals”, Photography Co-Op

Portland, Maine

1991 Maine Photographers 1991, Baxter Gallery, Portland, Maine

Maine Coast Artists Annual Exhibition, Rockport, Maine

1990 Maine Coast Artists Annual Exhibition, Rockport, Maine

Union of Maine Visual Artists Show, Ogunquit, Maine

1989 Union of Maine Visual Artists Show, West End Gallery

1987 Portland School of Art Alumni Exhibition

Thos. Moser, Portland, Maine

1986 One Person Show, Baxter Photo Gallery, Portland, Maine

1986 Maine Coast Artists Annual Exhibition, Rockport, Maine

Photography Invitational, NOPO Gallery, Portland, Maine

1985 Maine Photography Biennial Exhibition

University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine

1984 Portland School of Art Alumni Exhibition

Baxter Gallery, Portland, Maine

1980 Maine Photography Biennial Exhibition

University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine

Contemporary Maine Photographers

Alexander Hall, Westbrook College, Maine

Jay York Images

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Jay York Images

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Photographs of a pre-technological, pre-gentrified place

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Portland in the 1970s was a city on the brink of being reborn. Nestled between the misguided urban renewal of the 1960s and the boom years of the later 1980s it was a time of gestation and redefinition. A surprising number of young and talented photographers came of age using the city as subject matter for their creative explorations; documenting and making art. Gathered together for the first time this group of photographs expresses a pre-technological, pre-gentrified Portland in both aesthetic and architectural terms. More than mere nostalgic references, they deepen our awareness of time and place.

Initiated by photographer Andy Graham's rediscovery of a set of transparencies from 1975 taken in the Kennedy Park housing development, the show brings together the work of Tom Brennan, C.C. Church, Andy Graham, Rose Marasco, Joe Muir, Mark Rockwood, Jeff Stevensen, Jay York and Todd Webb. Co-curated by Andy Graham, Anne Riesenberg and Keith Fitzgerald of Zero Station the show opens on April 10, 2010 and runs through May 1, 2010 at Zero Station. Opening reception 5 – 8PM April 10th. The images can also be viewed at www.zerostation.com.