Artists On The Light Work Experience: Susan Worsham

This is the fourth piece of our multi-part blog installment featuring a photographic artist, and previous Light Work Artist-In-Residence. This week we hear from Susan Worsham. The statement that follows is Worsham’s answer to our questions, folded together into a series of captivating memories.

I remember showing executive Director Jefferey Hoone and some of the Light Work staff pictures that I had made around Syracuse during my residency. Someone said and everyone agreed that I had made Syracuse look like the south. That was an eye opener for me, and I realized from that experience that I bring “home” with me wherever I go and it is in every portrait and picture that I make. That simple observation opened up a bigger world for me in my head. That I could make work anywhere.

Light Work has now become like a second Home to me and with that comes all of the support that a family brings. It is now a part of my history and is intertwined with my roots as a growing artist. In turn I am a part of Light Work’s long history of supporting artists, one that does not stop once the month long residency is over.

I remember my first night in the artist’s apartment was spent staying up late with a large stack of Light Work’s publication Contact Sheet all over the bed, reading about all of the artists that had come before me.

Just two years after my residency I now hold Contact Sheet number 168 in my hands. An exhibition catalog of my own that not only holds my work, but my personal story as well. To accompany this catalog Light Work gave me my first solo show in the same gallery that as a visiting artist I walked by everyday and wondered what my work would look like on it’s walls.

The recorded voice of my oldest neighbor from my childhood street greeted me through speakers in the gallery’s ceiling making the exhibit more than just a collection of photographs, but again a home away from home.

Just three months later it was because of Light Work that I had my first solo show in my hometown at Candela Books + Gallery. In attendance were neighbors from my childhood street telling me how proud my mother would have been. Many were holding my Light Work Contact Sheet as they looked at the work on the walls. The work that was printed at Light Work.

This summer I had a room in The Ogden Museum of Southern Art filled with my work and again I traveled to Light Work where they helped me print the photographs.

I try to get back once a year to make work in Syracuse and visit my friends at Light Work. Many of the accomplishments that I have made in my career would not have been possible without their support.

Susan Worsham was born in Richmond, Virginia. She took her first photography class while studying graphic design in college. In 2009 Susan was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize For Photography, and her book “Some Fox Trails In Virginia” won first runner up in the fine art category of the Blurb Photography Book Now International Competition. In 2010 Susan was awarded the first TMC / Kodak Film Grant, and was an artist in residence at Light Work in Syracuse, New York. Her work is held in private collections, and has been exhibited at the Corcoran Museum during FotoWeek D.C, The Photographic Center Northwest, Dean Jensen Gallery, and most recently at the Danville Museum in Virginia. Susan was named one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers To Watch in 2011.

Find a signed limited-edition print by Susan Worsham for sale in the Light Work Shop.

Stay tuned for next week’s feature, with Lucas Foglia.

A Closer Look: John Chervinsky

John Chervinsky
The Analysis, 2005
Archival inkjet print, 10 x 8 in. on 12 x 9 in. paper
Shipped in a 18 x 14 in. mat
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist

John Chervinsky is a self-taught photographer. He is also an engineer working in the field of applied physics and spent eighteen years running a particle accelerator at Harvard University. He has collaborated with museums, using accelerator technology in the analysis of art. He currently works for Harvard’s Rowland Institute, founded by Polaroid’s Edwin H. Land. Since it first opened at the Griffin Museum of Photography in 2005, his Experiment in Perspective series has been traveling the country including solo exhibits at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Art Gallery, Batavia, IL; Michael Mazzeo Gallery, New York, NY; and Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR. His work is held in numerous public and private collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Art, Portland, OR; and Fidelity Investments Collection, Boston, MA. Chervinsky participated in Light Work’s Artist-In-Residence Program in 2012.

Browse the new prints and books online at www.lightwork.org/shop

Artists On The Light Work Experience: Jim Stone

This is the third piece of our multi-part blog installment featuring a photographic artist, and previous Light Work Artist-In-Residence. This week we hear from Jim Stone

How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your work? What progress did you make while here?

As a result of Light Work’s support I was able to make a significant body of new work, prints from which ended up in museum collections across the country and internationally.

How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your career? What came next?

My residency led directly to the 1993 monograph “Stranger Than Fiction” that was for Light Work, I believe, a kind of model for future collaborative mid-career projects. Although it is impossible to quantify, I cannot overstate the importance of Light Work’s sponsorship on my career.

Jim Stone turned to photography while studying engineering at MIT. His photographs have been exhibited and published internationally, and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among many others. Six of his books, A User’s Guide to the View Camera, Darkroom Dynamics, A Short Course in Photography and A Short Course in Digital Photography (with Barbara London), Photography and Photography, the Essential Way (London, Stone, Upton), are in wide and continued use for university-level courses, and there have been three artist’s books published of his photographs, Stranger Than Fiction (Light Work, 1993), Historiostomy (Piltdown Press, 2001), and Why My Pictures are Good (Nazraeli Press, 2005).

Stone has received awards from the Massachusetts Arts Council, The New England Foundation for the Arts, The San Francisco Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was the editor of Polaroid’s Newsletter for Photographic Education, and taught formerly at the Rhode Island School of Design and Boston College. Currently he is Professor of Photography at the University of New Mexico.

Find a signed monograph by Jim Stone for sale in the Light Work Shop.

Stay tuned for next week’s feature, with Susan Worsham.

A Closer Look: James Welling

James Welling
Tile Photograph 8, 1985/2013
Silver gelatin print, 10 x 8 in. on 14 x 11 in. paper
Shipped in a 18 x 14 in. mat
Edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist

James Welling‘s work centers on an exploration of photography, shuffling the elemental components of the medium to produce distinctly uncompromising results. During his career, Welling has experimented with different photographic mediums, including Polaroids, silver gelatin prints, photograms, and digital prints, exploring the tensions of and between representation and abstraction. This dramatic print comes from Welling’s abstract explorations from the 1980s, reproduced by the artist himself as a one-of-a-kind silver gelatin print exclusively for Light Work. Welling has had solo exhibitions at Künstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway; Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, France; Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA; and David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY, as well as a touring retrospective with the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH. His work was included in the Metro Pictures inaugural exhibition and featured in the 2008 Whitney Biennial in New York. He has also exhibited in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Welling participated in Light Work’s Artist-In-Residence Program in 1986.

Browse the new prints and books online at www.lightwork.org/shop

Artists On The Light Work Experience: Suzanne Opton

In honor of our 40th Anniversary, Light Work asked previous Artists-in-Residence for their thoughts on their Light Work experience. We started with a small group, a few of the artists selected for our current exhibition 40 Artists / 40 Years: Selections from the Light Work Collection. Each week, these statements will bring you a new perspective on Syracuse, Light Work, and the active space we create for our visiting artists.

The second piece of this multi-part blog installment features photographic artist, and previous Artist-In-Residence, Suzanne Opton.

How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your work? What progress did you make while here?

When I came to Light Work I was in the middle of making my “Soldier” photographs at nearby Fort Drum. I hadn’t decided how to present the images and I was a complete Photoshop novice. [Master Printer] John Mannion patiently walked me through the process and helped me define and produce the color palette I was looking for.

How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your career? What came next?

The Contact Sheet put me on the map. I had many requests and opportunities as a result of the extensive Light Work mailing list. Thereafter I exhibited the work in New York, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Despite the political nature of the images, they were widely collected by museums and private collectors.

Light Work presented the first of the Soldier billboards in Syracuse and thereafter, in partnership with Susan Reynolds and with NYFA fiscal sponsorship, I presented billboards in eight American cities. When the billboards were censored by CBS Outdoor at the Republican convention, the story was prominent in the NY Times and picked up in media around the world.

Suzanne Opton’s work has been exhibited internationally, and is featured in the permanent collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris; the Musée de’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. She has received grants from the Vermont Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Orion, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and Fortune.

Opton teaches at the International Center of Photography and the Cooper Union. She participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in September 2005.

Find a a signed monograph by Suzanne Opton for sale in the Light Work Shop.

Stay tuned for next week’s feature, with Jim Stone.

Announcing Light Work’s 2014 Subscription Program

Light Work is pleased to announce our 2014 Subscription Program, including limited-edition prints by James Welling, John Chervinsky, Lucas Foglia, Irina Rozovsky, signed copies of Strangely Familiar by Peter Mitchell, and a newly designed Contact Sheet. Purchase any print in our Fine Print Program or the Book Collectors Offer and receive a one-year subscription to Contact Sheet.

Great Cause / Great Art
Light Work, an artist-run, non-profit organization has been supporting emerging and under-recognized artists working in photography since 1973. Help us continue that support in get something in return.

Browse the new prints and books online at www.lightwork.org/shop

Artists On The Light Work Experience: Carrie Mae Weems

In honor of our 40th Anniversary, Light Work asked previous Artists-in-Residence for their thoughts on their Light Work experience. We started with a small group, a few of the artists selected for our current exhibition 40 Artists / 40 Years: Selections from the Light Work Collection. Each week, these statements will bring you a new perspective on Syracuse, Light Work, and the active space we create for our visiting artists.

The first piece of this multi-part blog installment features photographic artist and Syracuse resident Carrie Mae Weems.

How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your work? What progress did you make while here?

I was already on a certain visual path, so the residency didn’t influence my work or the direction of the work. However, it did provide me with valuable time and resources to work, to think, to play, to consider, to photograph, to print and to imagine the possible. For it’s extraordinary support and the encouragement that came with it, I remain deeply grateful.

How did your residency experience at Light Work influence your career? What came next?

The Light Work photographic community is extensive and Contact Sheet goes out to literally hundreds of photographers, collectors, and institutions, so when my work appeared in Contact Sheet, I received dozens of phone calls and letters from people, institutions and curators who learned about the work for the first time. It was a wonderful surprise. Out of these contacts came a number of lectures, publications and exhibitions.

Anything else you want to share about your experience?

Well, I got a man. I married Jeff Hoone. So the residency not only changed the scope of my career, but it changed my life.

Light Work remains one of the most important non-profit organizations in this country; it’s clear commitment to artists is both remarkable and singular.

Carrie Mae Weems was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953. Weems earned a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (1981), and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego (1984), continuing her studies in the Graduate Program in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley (1984–87). Weems’s vibrant explorations of photography, video, and verse breathe new life into traditional narrative forms: social documentary, tableaux, self-portrait, and oral history. Eliciting epic contexts from individually framed moments, Weems debunks racist and sexist labels, examines the relationship between power and aesthetics, and uses personal biography to articulate broader truths. Whether adapting or appropriating archival images, restaging famous news photographs, or creating altogether new scenes, she traces an indirect history of the depiction of African Americans of more than a century. Awards include the Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2007); Skowhegan Medal for Photography (2007); Rome Prize Fellowship (2006); and the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant in Photography (2002); among others. Weems’ work is included in many prestigious public collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Sevilla, Spain, among many others.

Find a print by Carrie Mae Weems for sale in the Light Work Shop.

Stay tuned for next week’s feature, with Suzanne Opton