By Suzanne Révy
I first met Emily Belz when she enrolled in the low residency MFA program at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2015. A year ahead of her in the same program, I became intrigued by her work and creative process when we were assigned a shared studio space at the school. Now Belz is a featured artist in two area exhibits: “Forward From Where We Came” at Gallery Kayafas in Boston through April 6th, 2019 and “Memory Lines,” one of three photographers in the Armchair Traveler exhibit at the re-opening Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA, on view April 14th through July 14th, 2019. Admired as a generous and articulate educator, Belz teaches at Lasell College and at the Griffin Museum of Photography. We are delighted to re-introduce our “Meet the Artist” feature with Emily Belz!
“When the Rain Came” from the series Memory Lines by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
Can you tell us a little about your background, where you grew up and what drew you to photography?
I grew up in Newton, MA. I started taking photography classes in high school at the Cambridge School of Weston, an alternative arts-focused high school outside of Boston. Bronlyn Jones was the photography teacher when I was there and she was phenomenal: thorough, focused, and detail-oriented. She taught me that the camera could open up an entirely different way of looking at the world—one that could introduce big ideas or focus on small details and spaces. Right away, I was attracted to this idea of small details, a thread that still runs through my work today. I carried this foundation with me as I went on to study photography and art history at Hampshire College, and completed my MFA in photography from the New Hampshire Institute of Art.
“Self and Other” from the series Memory Lines by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
Your photography is primarily focused on domestic spaces. Can you discuss what draws you to this sphere?
Homes are our most intimate spaces, they are the places where our lives unfold. I’ve always been motivated by the idea of photographing the stories that play out in domestic spaces— but not as they are happening. This leads me to look at traces and marks, remnants. My husband and I have a silent domestic dialogue in which messes, oddities or juxtapositions are left in the house for days at a time; he knows I might want to photograph them. Something magical happens when a space comes alive with the right light, the right combination of objects or artifacts. That’s when I know I might be onto something.
“Self as Subject” from the series Memory Lines by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
Your series “Memory Lines” explores the home and self-portraiture in multi-panel images. How did you plan that work?
Memory Lines came about through serendipity. In 2014 I enrolled in the Atelier at the Griffin Museum to reignite my creative practice. At the time, my son was very young, my time was very limited and I spent hours at home with him. I began making images in the house, almost as studies, to try to keep my eye sharp and to challenge myself to see the familiar in new ways. I was connecting image making to the idea of poetry, playing images out in a sequence or a line, like a string of words. It felt natural to bring my images together to form these lines, and the pictures began to pour out of me. I had never experienced photography that felt so natural before. Some sequences were preconceived, and I set out to make images that would illustrate that specific thought pattern or memory. Others I made after the fact, forming associations between images that felt meaningful and also visually engaging. I had never worked with self portraiture before Memory Lines and that, too, felt very natural. I was inspired by a quote from Francesca Woodman, a reply to why she photographed herself, “because I’m always available.”
“No Reflection” from the series Forward From Where We Came by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
“Forward from Where We Came” is an emotionally provocative group of individual images. Would you talk about how this series evolved?
When I became a mother, I started to think about the idea of inheritance, but not in the traditional sense. I wasn’t thinking about objects that might be passed down to me, or objects I might leave for my son, but rather the intangible things that we inherit—the stories—the legacies—the things we can’t hold in our hands, but deeply feel. The project started in the home where my husband grew up. I had always been interested in photographing his childhood home, but somehow the images that I tried to make there never felt right. After my mother-in-law passed away – it may sound funny to say -but the house opened itself up to me. I began making photographs immediately. The other two houses in the project—the home where I currently live with my husband and son and the home my parents lived in until my father’s death—complete the project. Each space bears witness to the stories that have unfolded within them and the histories that my son will someday learn.
“Blue Light Slant” from the series Forward From Where We Came” by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
I think the sequencing of photographs in your show at Gallery Kayafas in Boston is masterful. Would you discuss how you think about sequencing and arranging pictures?
Thank you. Editing and sequencing is one of my great joys. I love to look at a group of images, move them around, and explore the ways in which they can relate to one another. My approach to sequencing is very much informed by my childhood spent in the arts. My father directed a university art museum and was passionate about contemporary art, formalism, and abstraction. Looking at pictures has always been a part of my life, analyzing them for their underlying structure and form, their use of color. I started going along with my dad to witness him jury group shows, starting at eight years old. The experience of watching a diverse group of images come to cohesion left an impression on me, and I would study the ways in which light, color, structure, and form could serve as the basis to connect one image to the next. In my own work, I strive to combine these more formal elements with the arc of an emotional narrative when I sequence images.
“Removed” from the series Forward From Where We Came by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
You are a well-known photography educator in Boston. Does teaching inform your practice as an artist?
Yes, absolutely. Teaching and making really go hand in hand for me. The more rigorous I am with my teaching, the more motivated I am to keep pushing my own image making. There’s a tandem energy that comes from both—I’m a better photographer when I’m teaching, and a better teacher when I’m photographing. I have more to offer to each.
“Yellow House” by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
Please tell us about your upcoming show at the Danforth Museum.
I was thrilled to be juried into the New England Photo Biennial in 2015 and the Danforth Art Annual in 2016. It was through these exhibits that I met Danforth Curator Jessica Roscio. We connected again in the summer of 2017 and began discussing the possibility of a show. As a result, Armchair Travel: Works by Three Contemporary Photographers: Emily Belz, Rachel Loischild, and S. Billie Mandle will be part of the Museum’s reopening on the campus of Framingham State University on April 14th, 2019. I’m so honored to be exhibiting with Rachel and Billie and so incredibly thankful to Jessica and the Danforth for their support and belief in my work.
Recent work by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas Boston).
And finally, any new work on the horizon?
Yes, I’ve been working on a new project for three summers now, one that has arced considerably since its inception. In the warmer months my family and I spend time living on the water. When I first started this project I thought it was about documenting this alternative domestic space, and it was. However, in the summer of 2016 my father died unexpectedly, and I learned of his passing while caught in a storm at sea on the sailboat. It took 18 hours to make it home to my mother. As this project has grown, it and the boat itself, have become arenas to explore the complexity of grief and the container it was housed in for those wrenching 18 hours.
Thank you!
“Armchair Travel: Works by Three Contemporary Photographers: Emily Belz, Rachel Loischild and S. Billie Mandle” will open on April 14, 2019 at the Danforth Museum of Art. https://danforth.framingham.edu/exhibition/armchair-travel/
To read our review of Belz’s “Forward From Where We Came,” on view through April 6th, 2019 at Gallery Kayafas, go to:
https://whatwillyouremember.com/kimberly-witham-on-beauty-emily-belz-forward-from-where-we-came-at-gallery-kayafas-boston/
To read our Curator’s Viewpoint interview with Danforth Art Museum Curator Jessica Roscio, go to: https://whatwillyouremember.com/curators-viewpoint-jessica-roscio-danforth-art/
(Featured Image) “Closed Off, 2016” from the series Forward From Where We Came by Emily Belz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas, Boston).
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