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

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

Show Invitation

Show Announcement

Seeing Portland – 1970 to 1984

Photographs of a pre-technological, pre-gentrified place

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 and runs through May 1 at Zero Station. Opening reception 5 – 8PM April 10^th.

Curator's Statements

Seeing Portland – 1970 to 1984

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.

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

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

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

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