CCC To Host A Photography Exhibit
From: Caitlin Wright
To: Media
Date: 10/20/09
Subject: CCC To Host A Photography Exhibit PR
Clatsop Community College
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 10/20/09
Contact: David Lee Myers, dmyers@clatsopcc.edu or 503-338-2478
Photographers Darren Clark, Robin Bachtler Cushman and Jonathan Long featured at Clatsop Community College in photography exhibit titled: Examining our Relationship with Nature
A few years ago, CCC Adjunct Photography Instructor David Lee Myers walked into a 360° panorama photograph of mining wasteland, displayed on the inside of a fifteen foot diameter enclosure. He felt this was an extraordinarily effective way to convey the experience of a landscape, and wanted to share it with our community. That photograph (“Pre-Law Wastelands 360 panorama”), along with others, will be presented in the group photography exhibit Examining our Relationship With Nature at the College’s Art Center Gallery November 12th through December 16th, 2009. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. in the Art Center Gallery (located at 1653 Jerome Ave.) Also Thursday evening, there will be panel discussion with artists beginning at 7:30 p.m.
“Examining our Relationship with Nature explores a question,” says Myers. “Is this the world we want to live in? Can we make a better one? These photographers, with unblinking courage, record the environment we have made. I hope we can think as clearly. Every time we buy something, every time we vote, we’re choosing our economy and politics. What is the best world we can make?”
The artists included in this exhibit are photographers Darren Clark, Robin Bachtler Cushman, and Jonathan Long. David Lee Myers will present a brief, illustrated essay, Dreaming of Open Space for our Cars, as well.
The Art Center Gallery is ADA accessible and open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and on Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on weekends. This exhibit is open to the public and free of charge. For information about this exhibit, please contact David Lee Myers at dmyers@clatsopcc.edu or 503-338-2478.
JONATHAN LONG
Pre-Law Wastelands 360 panorama and Teton Dam Project
Jonathan Long was born and raised in Eastern Idaho and returned to the area after completing a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University to pursue his fine art photography. Spending much of his childhood exploring the outdoors at his father's side helped him develop a deep love and respect for the environment.
Surrounded by the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Jonathan lives in an area where he is able to point his camera towards many of the issues that currently face the West. These include land development, water allocation, ecosystem fragmentation and loss open space. Some of his recent works address these environmental issues and the affect politics have on the landscape. Jonathan hopes that through his imagery viewers will take an interest in his subjects and develop a greater respect for the environment.
“In photographing these “Pre-Law” sites, it is my intention to remind the viewer how things were before the Clean Air act, the Clean Water act and other environmental protections were enacted. These legislative milestones have stopped similar environmental destruction from continuing. Current political leaders are trying to repeal these laws and other environmental safeguards causing my photography to become more urgent,” says Long. “Sites such as those in my photographs need to stay fresh in our memory. When our political leaders claim protective policies and regulations are not needed, my work stands as proof otherwise. This work graphically demonstrates the importance of modern environmental laws in ensuring that the nation’s most valuable natural resources will be enjoyed by all future generations,”
ROBIN BACHTLER CUSHMAN
Spectacle of Nature: Display Gardens Inside a Winter Convention Center
Robin Bachtler Cushman is a fine art and horticultural photographer whose work is grounded in the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Her fine art projects investigate the intersection of nature and culture in suburban and urban settings. She photographs in venues where she can explore how we regard and interact with nature – garden shows, butterfly houses, parks, greenways and gardens. Cushman holds an MFA in photography from the University of Oregon, where she teaches classes in visual literacy and photography. Her work has appeared in the Oregon Quarterly magazine. She lectures around the region.
Cushman sees photography as the best medium to examine how our culture relates to nature in our postmodern, mediated world – an era in which most of our experience of nature comes through images. Cushman’s horticultural photography reflects her passion for stewardship of the earth and its inhabitants through sustainable gardening and agriculture. Her subjects include home and community gardens, family farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), farmers markets, nurseries and garden shows. Her work appears in regional and national publications.
“My photography explores our relationship with nature through the hyper-reality of the garden show, a place where nature is commercialized, sensualized, and placed on display,” says Cushman. “Ours is a world in which all our experiences are mediated through images. I use photography itself as a lens through which to examine the contemporary intersection of nature and culture in this mass-media environment. My artwork investigates our relationship with nature in an increasingly commercial and hyper-real world, one emphasizing instant gratification and entertainment. It explores ways in which nature is repackaged and re-presented and how humans interact with such artificially constructed nature.”
DARREN CLARK
The Practical Landscape: The Upper Snake River Valley of Idaho
Darren Clark grew up in Southeastern Idaho and has strong feelings about the landscape and inhabitants of the region. He earned a BFA in photography from Utah State University in Logan, UT. He earned an MFA in photography from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA, where he investigated the relationship between the natural and cultural geography of the region.
He is currently photographing the landscape of The Snake River Plain of Idaho and is particularly interested in the structures and landscape associated with irrigation and agriculture. He divides his time between photographing, birding, fly-fishing, teaching, and his family. Darren, his wife Susan, and their three sons currently live in Rexburg, Idaho where Darren teaches photography at Brigham Young University-Idaho.
In regards to his work, “A Practical Landscape: The Upper Snake River Valley of Idaho”, Clark reflects, “ On the surface this seems a dry, sad, flat, cold place. Though those qualities exist, there are surprising moments of beauty, calmness, and hope. Too often, though, disappointments prevail. Despite the sadness, I am optimistic. As a photographer I’m on a continual search for beauty and meaning. Sometimes it's the smallest thing that holds my interest. The low light of evening revealing unseen texture, backlit trees, a dramatic sky, the quiet of new fallen snow; these are the moments I savor. The cultivation of a relationship with and understanding of this place is the subject of the work.”
DAVID LEE MYERS
Dreaming of Open Space for our Cars
David Lee Myers has been photographing Northwest landscapes and natural history since 1970. He went to the University of California at Berkeley expecting to become a scientist, and left with an abiding love and commitment to fine arts photography, which he had studied with Dave Bohn and Roger Minick. In 1970 he participated in the great, romantic “back to the land” movement, flinging himself into rural southwest Washington. Today Myers works as an independent artist and is adjunct faculty for photography at Clatsop Community College in Astoria.
Clatsop Community College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution.
Images Attached:
Pre-law Wastelands 360 panorama by Jonathan Long will be on show at Clatsop Community College’s Art Center Gallery in the photography exhibit, Examining our Relationship with Nature, from November 12th through December 16th, 2009. Submitted photo.
Teton Dam Project by Jonathan Long will be on show at Clatsop Community College’s Art Center Gallery in the photography exhibit, Examining our Relationship with Nature, from November 12th through December 16th, 2009. Submitted photo.
Spectacle of Nature, Display Gardens Inside a Winter Convention Center by Robin Bachtler Cushman will be on show at Clatsop Community College’s Art Center Gallery in the photography exhibit, Examining our Relationship with Nature, from November 12th through December 16th, 2009. Submitted photo.
The Practical Landscape, The Upper Snake River Valley of Idaho by Darren Clark will be on show at Clatsop Community College’s Art Center Gallery in the photography exhibit, Examining our Relationship with Nature, from November 12th through December 16th, 2009. Submitted photo
Page Last Modified:
November 6, 2009
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