By Elin Spring
Diagnosis: spring fever. Treatment: stroll Down Garden Paths. Prescription: visit the Griffin Museum in Winchester, MA. There, you will find a delirious assortment of photography, from vibrant floral specimens to ardent gardeners, in a group show featuring eight artists: Craig J. Barber, Joan Lobis Brown, Jimmy Fike, Ivana Damien George, Emily Hamilton Laux, Marcy Palmer, Paula Riff and Vaughn Sills. Down Garden Paths promises to soothe your symptoms of spring fever through June 2nd, 2019.
“Reverend Jules Landry’s Garden, St. James, Louisiana, 2001” by Vaughn Sills (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
Across the globe and over the centuries, wherever the good earth and political climate have allowed, agrarian communities have sprung up. Vaughn Sills’ B&W studies of traditional African American gardens in the south shine with her attention to their enchanting landscapes, from quirky bird feeders and emblematic dolls to distinctive windmills and decoratively arranged car tires. In their meticulous plantings and ancestral influences, Sills captures the dedication, pride and enduring spirituality of a disappearing generation of gardeners.
“Eula Mary Owens’s Yard, Jackson, Mississippi, 2001” by Vaughn Sills (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“Thom, Vineyard Foreman, 2012” unique wet-plate collodion tinype by Craig J. Barber (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
Craig J. Barber’s portraits pay homage to the family farmer and others who live close to the land, matching their labors of love with his similarly slow and attentive archival photographic method. Shooting with an 8”x 10” view camera and glass plate negatives, Barber makes on-the-spot wet-plate collodion tintypes whose imperfections reflect the caprice of farming conditions and the rugged beauty of both crops and croppers.
“Nancy & Toulouse, 2011” unique wet-plate collodion tinype by Craig J. Barber (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“She Discovered A Hidden Treasure” by Ivana Damien George (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
From the vegetable hoisted triumphantly overhead to the synchrony of her flowing skirt with a sprinkling water can, Ivana Damien George’s vibrant images are joyous, sometimes humorous celebrations of her garden’s lavish produce, brimming with verdant inspiration for living an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.
“Tending The Beet Seedlings In June” by Ivana Damien George (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“Phantasmagorical #2” by Joan Lobis Brown (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
In Joan Lobis Brown’s dreamlike and uncanny single exposures, the interior of a serene kitchen window is engulfed by the reflections of a lush garden with big blooms and flitting birds, invoking an allegorical Garden of Eden in the proverbial heart of the home.
“Phantasmagorical #7” by Joan Lobis Brown (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“Dahlia + Red Clover, 2018” Emily Hamilton Laux (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
Lovely pastel blooms and invasive weeds co-mingle, suspended in clear, sun-drenched jars of water in Emily Hamilton Laux’s nostalgic typology of flowers, wherein the magnifying effect of water literally and figuratively amplifies the threat of invasive plants to native biodiversity.
“Sensitive Fern + Echinacea, 2015” by Emily Hamilton Laux (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“Girl Crush, 2018” gum bichromate unique print by Paula Riff (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
In Paula Riff’s colorful photograms, leaves dance across dark fields, at once playful and sophisticated. Employing the alternative methods of cyanotype and gum bichromate, Riff creates airy, refined and lyrical abstract designs that exalt nature, often enhanced by inventive multi-panel prints.
“On Brooklyn Ground, 2018” cyanotype and gum bichromate unique print by Paula Riff (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“Amaranth, 2015” by Jimmy Fike (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
In “J.W. Fike’s Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of the North American Continent” (Atelier Gallery), individual floral specimens (roots and all) are photographed on a black background with precision and delicacy, referencing the pioneering work of biologist Anna Atkins and photography inventor William Henry Fox Talbot while offering a “dose of something palliative for the ills of alienation.”
“Agoseris, 2018” by Jimmy Fike (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
“Dancing Leaves, 2018” 24k gilded vellum with archival UV varnish and wax by Marcy Palmer (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
It seems rather a lot of artists are being driven outdoors to escape current internal affairs. Marcy Palmer’s “antidote for personal and political crisis” led her to photograph plants and flowers she gathered during neighborhood walks. Printed on smooth, translucent vellum and treated with gold leaf, varnish and wax, Palmer’s intimate, iridescent photographs are at once radiant and surreal (Griffin Gallery).
“R.x harisonii, 2018” 24k gilded vellum with archival UV varnish and wax by Marcy Palmer (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
A meander Down Gardens Paths holds all the fragrant delights of a big, mixed bouquet, with each artist offering a distinctive, intoxicating interpretation of the earth’s bounty. As an added treat, in the Atelier Gallery, you can peruse handmade artist photobooks from the “9th Annual Self-Published Photobook Exhibition at Davis Orton Gallery and Griffin Museum.” For more information on these exhibits, go to: https://griffinmuseum.org/exhibitions/
Feature Image: “Phantasmagorical #3” by Joan Lobis Brown (courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography).
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