In Anticipation of the 2021 Wickford Art Festival

Silent Sentinal

It is with great excitement that I look forward to this weekend and the 59th annual Wickford Art Festival. With last year’s pandemic hiatus and a year of re-evaluation, my festival expectations have shifted. I look forward to showing work created in 2020-21. This reflects the recent evolution of my creative growth. A year without international travel workshops made my forays closer to home. I have written about the vanishing barns, a project that started as a documentary series and morphed into a vehicle for honing my own vision. The surprise has been in taking this aesthetic, of elegant imperfection, out of the farm and into other local subjects.

The weathering of wood, the rusting of metal, the aged and textured bark of a tree are all of the same aesthetic. They speak of timelessness, impermanence and the beauty of imperfection.

Featured in this festival exhibition are many images in black and white.
In teaching black and white photography classes at local art associations (and black and white photograph workshops on Block Island), the research has impacted my photography. The stripping away of color, attention to light, shadow, form and story continue to be an important element in my images.

Another current thread on display is a result of patience and introspection. In practicing a more contemplative approach, the approach is more intimate and authentic. Teaching students to slow down and recognize a more intuitive response to subjects, has caused me to be more aware of the world around me. This less judgmental visioning often includes subjects that are not part of my usual repertoire.

Elated, Block Island

The art festival gives me the opportunity to talk about these exciting new ways of seeing, with plenty of examples with which to refer. I can only gauge how successful I am in communicating the message of a photograph by the responses from you, the viewer. In this blog post are several of the images to be displayed.

The 2021 Wickford Art Festival, is to be held in Wilson Park, a departure from the village streets that gave it such a distinctive flavor. With more room to move about the booths in response to safety concerns, I am eager to showcase my work for two days, talk up a storm and immerse into the excitement that is the Wickford Art Festival.

Stop by booth # 203 to say ‘hi’. I’m looking forward to seeing you!