MY FIRST TIME

Made you look.

My first time...we all have firsts. Mine is my first solo exhibition which is currently taking place at Congressman Rob Wittman's Fredericksburg, Virginia office. This is a very exciting moment for me. The office wanted something new on their walls and as Rep Wittman represents Fredericksburg (in Virginia's 1st congressional district), they were looking for images that do the same.

Well, fortunately, Fredericksburg is one of my favorite haunts. Old town is phenomenal as every time I go there I seem to find something new to shoot. I've lived here for somewhere around seven years; been roaming old town for about five.

The viewing process for selection went from basic art I've found in old town to photos that best represent the area. It was a matter of digging into old folders and finding images that don't make the website. Why don't they make the website? There's nothing wrong with the images, it's just that I do a lot of close up shots that I know represent Frederickburg, but that no one else knows represents Fredericksburg. These are the shots that hit the site. The others stay in folders in the darkroom. Nothing wrong with that. These are images I just don't believe would sell. Well, after having a heart to heart with my business adviser and working with Rep Wittman's office, I've concluded otherwise.

How did I rectify the problem? I made a new gallery on the website called Haunts. This is an area where I put those shots of favorite places I hang out. It gives me room to put up local images to share with visitors and potential clients. Currently Fredericksburg and Richmond take the honors. But, in the big picture, I'll be traveling a lot more.

Below are a few of the images that are in the exhibition. If you've ever been in old town Fredericksburg, you'll recognize many of them. If you've never been to old town, I encourage you to visit.

THE RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER

This is probably one of the most photographed and painted images in Fredericksburg.

FREDERICKSBURG CITY HALL

I just loved the way the shadows hit the lettering on the building.

FREDERICKSBURG BAPTIST CHURCH

Old town has many churches and you'll see the steeples as you roam the streets.

HORSE & CARRIAGE

I think old town still offers carriage rides. The horses are beautiful. If you can't take a carriage ride, go for the trolley. It's a great tour.

FREDERICKSBURG CIRCUIT COURT

I seriously thought this was a church steeple. As I was putting the presentation together for the show, I Google mapped the area to find the streets of the landmarks and learned this wasn't a church. It's a fascinating steeple.

 

 

CIVIL WAR CANNON

 Located at Marye's Heights, this is the location of the Fredericksburg National Cemetery. A lot of history at this site.

 

REDEFINING ART

I've had some very eye opening views on art during the past two weeks (maybe that's why I'm a week behind on posting). You see, being a self taught artist doesn't really give you a lot of room to say much about art. I can't comment on the "greats". I have no idea what makes a piece outstanding. I don't have the art vocabulary. Nor do I have the art snobbery. Really, I get defensive about the whole thing. How can you define what can't be defined?

Honestly, I'm not bitching. This all started brewing in my head when a very, very dear friend and I were discussing the award for Dinner for Two. My friend told me it was a nice shot, she really liked it, she didn't get it, but she liked it. While I heard the "liked it" phrases, the one that really stuck was "I didn't get it". Right there, the problem with art. There isn't necessarily anything to get. Dinner for Two is a shot of an empty outside dinner table with a white tablecloth, silver wrapped in white napkins resting on top of two white plates, all set against a pale pink stucco background and the top edge of red chair. I saw the image, I saw the colors and I shot. It caught me. It didn't really represent anything until I downloaded it onto the computer and started keywording. How do I keyword this? Love? Hope? Romance? Happiness? Yeah, that was all there. But that's not what I saw when I took the shot. I saw color and texture. The pink and all that white. The stucco wall. Really, the red chair was the kicker.

I got to thinking about what my friend said. "I didn't get it, but I liked it." You know, that's the whole purpose. You liked it. You may not know why you liked it, but you liked it. It set something off, maybe an emotion, a memory. Maybe nothing and you just liked it. Point is, there's nothing to get. Art is too subjective to either get it or not.

The second awakening was making presentations for a client showcase. I'm very honored to have received a request to present my work to them, but it was nerve wracking to say the least. I'm sending over photos of images of Fredericksburg, and while they liked them, they wanted buildings and landmarks (where I have a tendency to capture quirky, up close detail of buildings and shadows and things nobody really wants). Nothing wrong with what they were looking for, I understood the reason, but to me, that's not necessarily art, and the purpose was to showcase local art. And so again, we have a difference (or am I being an art snob). Fortunately, I have this thing about the church steeples piercing the skies of old town, so I did have what they were looking for. That and a few other location type shots. Not what I normally shoot. To me, landmarks and buildings are tourist shots, travel memories for the scrapbook (remember when you'd watch slides of your family vacations?). But then again, I've seen some gorgeous artistic travel shots. I mean, Nat Geo lives on that stuff. All in all, we're talking style here. It's like that old saying - One man's junk is another man's treasure.

But let me wrap this up because I'm getting a little too wordy. Art has this perceived definition (and I apparently fell into it). It's a world that seems to belong to a certain social class and the best the rest of us can  do is purchase prints of long dead artists from the local arts and crafts store. No, that's not snobbery. In fact, my favorite print on the wall in my home is by Paul DeLaroche - La Jeune Martyre. And guess what? I got it at the local Michael's.

La Jeune Martyre

Art needs to be redefined. It doesn't need to belong to one particular class of people, but to the world; and while there are amazing artists out there redefining (in a good way) what art really is, it seems a struggle at times. Not just for me, but for all of us; because art has been pre-defined by the academics of this world. I say we just leave it subjective, because really, there's nothing to get. It's simply a matter of something to enjoy.