NEWSLETTER :: SPRING 2009
This is the year for change, beginning on the 20th of January, when the New Year truly began. Only now that spring is in the air can I focus on the turn of the year. What I experience is a new dance as the ticket to a more expressive life: The Tango! Starting in the fall of 2008, I have been photographing and learning the tango. What could be better in these changing times than an ageless dance form that demands full concentration, participating with a partner engrossed in the dancing rhythm of the evocative tango beat.
I found the Tango through a chance meeting with Bianca Blesching and Jean-Pierre Sighe, who dance and teach in Oakland, California. (www.tangomagdalena.com) We share a love of dance and dance images. Our collaboration has begun. Their philosophy starts with the expression of Tango as a “Place of Gathering”, which originates in one of the African Bantou languages, the Kicongo. This language moved with slavery to Buenos Aires (Argentina) in the 19th Century. You can see all sorts of Tango dance in cyberspace. Just watching the dance is intoxicating. But to dance it! That is the challenge.
My series of photographs on Tango is another expression of nature’s dance, which continues the way I have been photographing for many years now and am slowly developing into a project called Nature Body Time.
A major exhibition was shown at PhotoCentral from November 14, 2008-January 18, 2009. I am happy to report that the show was well-received and prints sold briskly. On February 13th a portion of that exhibition opened at Viewpoint Gallery in Sacramento, where it showed until March 9th.
Portraiture moves into the digital realm in 2009 making me into a genuine hybrid! There will be more discussion of that in a subsequent newsletter. Email or call me to get on board for my digital portrait days.
Speaking of digital, since 1996 I have been printing in the new technology, starting with the artist’s book, English Gardens, that was published in that year. In recent years I have been producing Garden Books for private clients. My most recent was produced as a memoir of a summer property in New Hampshire that has been a beloved family retreat for over one hundred years. Complete with a glacial pond and a hilly forest all around, the stone house gathers family in the great room at the center. Even in old New England I find the spirit of Tango! Instead of one precious copy, this was printed in an edition of 35 copies to distribute to all the generations of the clan.
For more information on all of these subjects or just to catch up on our lives, call or write me, anytime.
Warm Good Wishes for 2009,