By Suzanne Révy
We seem to have turned a corner on summer. The days are getting noticeably shorter and the nights are cooler. A transition is underway as we progress through the year to fall. It brings to mind the melancholy I felt as a child in the final weeks of summer when camp was over before school began. Late August presents a threshold to cross, and with it, the emotional edge of endings and beginnings. Three recently published monographs address my wistful late summer mood in sumptuous black and white. They are Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi (Yoffy Press), I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein (Yellow Bird Press) and Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney (Dust Collective).
Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
From the book Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
The bright red cover of Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi with a mess of broken plates may at first seem to be chaotic. And the opening image of pots, pans and other utensils piled high on a kitchen counter cement that tumultuous tone, but as we leaf through the book a myriad of transformations are revealed in calmer, atmospheric or layered images that introduce more nuanced auras.
From the book Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
From the book Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
From the book Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
The reader can intuit that the family in the center of these domestic scenes is parenting children with food allergies and learning challenges. The pictures move from quiet meditations, particularly the author’s self-portrait made using a long shutter speed, rain soaked windows, and and the fog blanketing the outside to the detritus of familial organization using post-it notes, fridge magnets and homework worksheets. And of course, children at play or in repose, which express joy, frustration and ennui. As both witness and participant in her family’s story, Bacchi shines a light on the often invisible but vital role that mothers play in the day to day lives of their children. Her images will resonate with those who have toiled within the domestic realm, particularly for those who have managed children with special needs. Sarah Kennel writes an accompanying essay called The Kids are Alright on the history of motherhood in photography.
From the book Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
From the book Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi.
I Hope You Find What You Are Looking for by Gloria Baker Feinstein.
From the book I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein.
From the book I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein.
(Feature Image) “Swimmer, Kansas City, MO” (detail) by Gloria Baker Feinstein, 2015, from the book I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For, courtesy of the artist.
Gloria Baker Feinstein’s I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For is less documentary than Bacchi’s book, reveling in the more poetic and playful interactions of children in nature and the transformative power of being present and carefully observant. Feinstein’s fifth book of photographs is a study in chiaroscuro, form, and changing weather rendered in deep, rich blacks. The pictures of children are punctuated by images of silhouetted adult figures standing by the water’s edge, atmospheric landscapes and studies of flying birds. The pictures feel like the traces that dreams leave as we wake from sleep. And we ask, was that real?
From the book I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein.
From the book I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein.
The deft sequencing brings disparate elements into visual conversation. Wind blows through the tresses of a tow headed girl that is paired with a picture of three large birds flying among similarly shaped wispy clouds or a leaf on the sloping shoulders of a boy that mirrors the shape of several lilies tied in bunches. One picture with a delicate bubble that floats before stormy clouds sums up the tenor of the book: palpably disquieting while venerating the fragile. Readers are invited into Feinstein’s world of wonder, quiet meditation and an unknown future. Poems by Kim Stafford accompany several of the pictures throughout, and though they are beautiful and moving, I found they distracted somewhat from my reverie of the images. In addition, there is an introduction by the photographer, an essay titled Mindfulness in Photography by Douglas Beasley, and an afterword by Julian Anderson.
From the book I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein.
“Searching, Magee Marsh Beach” on the cover of Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney
“Turtle Eggs, Magee Marsh, 2013” from the book Ohio Boudary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney.
The final book is a softcover catalog of a show presented last spring at the Aurelia Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico called Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney. In contrast to Feinstein’s rich blacks, Whitney employs a subtle mid-tonal range in her large format studies of the shores along Lake Erie. Both artists explore the water’s edge as a metaphor for an uncharted destiny, but Feinstein’s pictures are dreamy while Whitney’s are haunting.
“Freighter, Oil Off Shore, Lorain, 2009” from the book Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney.
“Picnicking, Magee Marsh Beach, 2016” from the book Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney.
“Wedding Aisle, Port Clinton, 2013” from the book Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney.
Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, with an international border between Canada and Ohio. Inspired by the work of Frank Gohlke and her mentor Nicholas Nixon, who writes an essay for the book, Whitney explored the lake over a ten year period with an 8”x10” view camera. She writes that her photographic interests in the lake paralleled the steely determination of the person in “Searching” featured on the cover as she sought the perfect rock or stone despite the rain. Many of the pictures are cloaked in the soft light of overcast skies and the horizons disappear at times. The beaches are sparse with visitors who are few and far between. But the environmental vulnerabilities become visible through a nest of fragile turtle eggs, trees leaning toward the water, and a series of branches standing at attention. There is a sense of quiet foreboding in the work, though the threat of climate change is difficult to fathom in a single photograph. Her pictures are profoundly subtle and achingly poignant. George Bullerjahn, Ph.D writes an illuminating essay on the geography and health of the lake.
“Willow, Euclid, 2009” from the book Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney.
“Signal near Sandusky, 2014” from the book Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney.
Whether the ebb and flow of transitions are daily, as with young children, or between the subconscious and the conscious, between light and dark, or more slowly over a decades, each of these books searches and grasps for the essence of ephemerality. The books present the perfect atmosphere for the end of a verdant summer as it slides into the cooler, crisper tones of fall.
I Hope You Find What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein (left), Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi (center), Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney (right). Books photographed by Suzanne Révy.
Watermelons are not Strawberries by Sandra Bacchi, essay by Sarah Kennel, Yoffy Press, 2021
http://www.yoffypress.com/catalog/watermelons
I Hope You Fine What You Are Looking For by Gloria Baker Feinstein, essay by Douglas Beasley, afterword by Julian Anderson and poems by Kim Stafford, 2022
https://book-101591.square.site/product/i-hope-you-find-what-you-re-looking-for/110?fbclid=IwAR2JCrkN9BV6fm4UJTlvEbRb56D-gx4PZbB3dXkpG0KcFjgSQs05PMJV018
Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie by Lynn Whitney, essays by George Bullerjahn, Ph.D, and Nicholas Nixon, Aurelia Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dust Collective, 2022.
https://www.dustcollective.net/indie/ohio-boundary-lake-erie-by-lynn-whitney
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