New York-based artist Patterson has been working on his artist book, Redheaded Peckerwood, for the last two months at Light Work, starting in May when he was an artist-in-residence. Redheaded Peckerwood is based on the true crime story of 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and 14-year-old Caril Ann Fugate, who murdered ten people, including Fugate’s family, during a week-long killing spree across the state of Nebraska in 1958. The series was made during several road trips following the path of Starkweather and Fugate, from their hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska to the point of their capture in Douglas, Wyoming. The resulting images include significant places and things from their story. The project is part road trip, part time machine, and mostly a testament to the thin line between fame and infamy, truth and representation.

It’s been fun and exciting for us to watch as Patterson has utilized almost every aspect of our facility to make this book come together. After perfecting the images in our digital lab and finalizing the layout in InDesign, Patterson used one of the 4880s in our public access digital lab to print the entire guts of the book. (For the paper geeks out there, the book is printed on Moab Legion Paper, Lasal Photo Matte 235. After talking to Patterson about the project, Moab generously donated enough paper for him to print an edition of 10 of the books.)

Watch here as our 4880 produces one sheet of the 144 pages in the book, which features 64 images. It took about 15 hours to print each book.

Throughout the project, Patterson has been working with Jared Landberg, a local book binder and photographer with considerable book binding skills. Together they have hand folded, sewn, and trimmed the book.

Watch here as Landberg sews one of the copies of Redheaded Peckerwood.

Yesterday, Patterson screen-printed the cover of the book with John Wischmann, another local artist. The book cover features an image, in negative, of Starkweather and Fugate on a gray book cloth, which references the photographic negative.

Redheaded Peckerwood also contains facsimiles of artifacts from the case, including a map, a poem, a list of dirty jokes, and a confession letter, all of which Patterson has painstakingly re-created down to the aged look of the paper, where appropriate. To make the facsimile of the confession letter for example, Patterson hand-traced each letter using a photograph of the original document and a light table.

The first few books will be “cased-in” this weekend. We’re hoping that Patterson will bring us a finished book on Monday! There is some time pressure to finish at least a few of the books soon, as Redheaded Peckerwood will be exhibited during this year’s Recontres d’Arles in France.

Andy Adams over at Flak Photo always has high quality features on the site, along with the daily gem that you get in the form of the Today’s Flak Photo. I especially enjoy the Review Santa Fe 2010 feature, going on through July 9, because I had the pleasure of meeting most of the featured artists at the event at the beginning of June. It’s great to see these 25 artists, including former Light Work  Artist-in-Residence Chad States, get this kind of exposure!

All the artists are worth a click, but make especially sure to click through to Amber Shields’s website and take an in-depth look at her Visions of Johanne series, a touching and poignant commentary on aging in America.

—Mary Goodwin

Image: Amber Shields, Hallway, 2009

We’ve been rolling fine with the name Light Work Blog, and it certainly doesn’t beat around the bush in terms of clarity! But we’re searching for something a little more creative, and we’re asking our readers to help us out.

The person who submits the winning idea wins a signed copy of the beautiful book Maggie by Emmet and Elijah Gowin for their trouble.

Post your suggestions in the comments or email me directly at magoodwi@syr.edu. —Mary Goodwin

Last weekend, Light Work had the pleasure of hosting the MARK10 closing event for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). The three-day event brought together over one hundred artists, curators and arts administrators for coaching in professional practices, lectures, panel discussions and networking opportunities.

The NYFA group of artists, coaches, and presenters included a number of familiar faces, such as Ellen M. Blalock (AIR 2002), Lida Suchy (AIR 1994, LW Grant 2010), and Willson Cummer. But there were also a few surprises that reached further back into Light Work/Community Darkrooms history. Tatana Kellner was published in Light Work’s publications in the seventies, long before she participated in our residency program in 1992. Sylvia de Swaan completed residencies, received the LW Grant multiple times, and has served on our board. Carla Shapiro and Carlos Loret de Mola both were thrilled and surprised to see our state-of-the-art facility, that looked completely different from the modest darkrooms they worked in during their college years at Syracuse University many years ago. This made for a celebrated homecoming that was sweetened as they shared how formative their experience at Community Darkrooms was.

The MARK10 event was a sounding success and a pleasure to host due to the relentless efforts of NYFA MARK10 organizer and instructor Amber Hawk Swanson, and on a local side, the MARK10 liaison and CRC communication specialist Courtney Rile.

The MARK program is now in its third year and provides New York artists from all different disciplines with training in professional practices. It is a unique training and networking opportunity. The six-month program for 2010 was organized through partner organizations in five regions in New York State: Cultural Resources Council, Syracuse (Central New York), East End Arts Council, Riverhead (Long Island), Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo (Western New York), The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy (Capital Region), and Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale (Hudson Valley).

Image: Ellen Blalock, MARK10 participant, Skylar, 2002, from the series The Father Project