Read the review, “Davis Orton Gallery showcases work of 2 photographers” here.

Stefanie Klavens is the Featured Artist for April of “Northeast Exposure Online,” a web-based showcase of regional photography presented by the Photographic Resource Center.  Here you will find photographs from her series “How We Live.” (left: “I Really Try …., 2003.)  The other good news is that Stefanie has launched her website where  you can find images from this and other series including “Historic Theaters” which she exhibited at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2011.

This Side of Paradise in The Bronx presented by No Longer Empty

Works by 30 artists including Sylvia Plachy [left photograph from NY Daily News]  The gates of the Andrew Freedman Home, 1125 Grand Concourse, Bronx are now opened to the public. The huge (100,000 square ft.) limestone (mansion) home, opened in 1924, was designed to be a haven for rich elderly who had lost their fortunes. The Home provided food, shelter and the accouterments of a rich & civilized life style. Read all about it, it’s decay, it’s partial resurrection  and now, thanks to No Longer Empty, the site of installations by over 30 artists in the NYTimes - article by Randy Kennedy.

Sylvia Plachy’s installation is in Room 246.   ”Room 246 is my homage to those who once lived here. I came here to photograph in January, 1980 on assignment for the Village Voice. I was drawn to the gentility of the residents. They were haunting even then. They were so much like my grandmother and people I knew as a child in Hungary, who’ve also had hard times, but they dressed for dinner, conversed, read and played cards under the dim lights chandeliers.” The installation includes paintings from the time, Sylvia’s photographs, a reprint of Vivian Gornick’s article and music compiled from vinyl 78′s by Ed Towney. Sylvia exhibited at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010.

Lisa Dahl is the curator and an exhibiting artist in the group show, “Trash Talk” at Spattered Columns/Art Connects New York, 491 Broadway, Suite 500, New York NY, April 11 – May 3, 2012; opening reception April 11, 6-8pm.

“The idea behind curating Trash Talk stemmed from my own considerations about the amount of excess materials I throw out because my daily necessities come packaged in them. Despite the admittedly small impact my recycled art has in decreasing my own trash production, I started making little houses out of product paperboard that have grown into neighborhoods by the hundreds. Naming the series Suburban Export served as a small confession of what we truly produce in our daily lives.” One of the strongest commonalities among the work of the Trash Talk artists is the use of beauty and humor to help convey some of the medium’s harder realities into a more palatable discussion.

Lisa’s photobook, Discarded Dreams was selected a “best of show” and exhibited along with her photographs and a video at the Photobook 2010 at the Davis Orton Gallery.

Other Animals, an extensive solo exhibition of Elliot Ross’s photographs is at United Photo Industries in DUMBO, Brooklyn, April 3 – 24. This show contains a selection of images published in his book Animal, as well as a roughly equal number of new, heretofore unseen animal portraits.

Elliot exhibited work from Animal at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010.  Come by the gallery and ask to see photographs from that series.

Karen Davis, co-director of the Davis Orton Gallery  anounces the recent publication of her book,  To the Flag: A Memoir and Parade to the Chimes of Freedom, a Davis Orton Gallery Edition via blurb.

“Civil rights, Vietnam, the right of labor to organize, the Gulf Wars, a woman’s right to choose… for over fifty years I’ve marched to take a stand. While I saw my acts as patriotic, it was the opposition that wrapped itself in the flag. It should come as no surprise that I harbored a deep distrust of people making too much of a fuss over our flag.

The catalyst for this book was a Flag Day Parade in Hudson NY, my new hometown. As the parade passed, thoughts turned to vivid memories of the flag, shared national experiences and long-held beliefs. Although the sounds of bagpipes, horns and drums filled the air, the song in my head was Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom.”

Jeff and Maggie are joining together to offer a unique week-long photo workshop, “Form and Content” in Miami FL March 25 to 31 (5 days from now). Steber, a contributing photographer to National Geographic and formerly Director of Photography at The Miami Herald is a master of the narrative in photography.  Jacobson, who exhibited at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2011, author of “My Fellow Americans,” “Melting Point,” and upcoming “The Last Roll” is known for his idiosycratic and formally beautiful documentary photographs.  The workshop is limited to 10 students.  There is space left but time is short.  Scholarships may be available.  Contact Jeff or Maggie for more info.

Vaughn Sills

Vaughn’s beautiful black and white photographs of  traditional African American Gardens of the South will be exhibited in Charlotte SC and Chicago IL this summer.  ”Traditional African American Gardens of the South” will be on view at the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC from May 4 to September 9, 2012.

In Chicago, July 14 – September 30, 2012,  there will be simultaneous exhibitions of “Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens” at the DuSable Museum of African American History and and the Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL.

Vaughn exhibited at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010.

Meg Birnbaum

Congratulations to Meg. The photography festival, Encuentros Abiertos-Festival de la Luz, has invited Meg to exhibit 24 photographs from her ‘person/persona’ portfolio series. The exhibition will take place at the Museum of Art Pompeo Boggio, in the Chivilcoy Province in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Meg exhibited photographs from Person/Persona at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2011.

Ernie Button

Ernie has an intriguing new series, “Clearing the Land” which can be seen on his website. It’s a poignant look at the building boom and bust in Phoenix, his home town.  During the boom “a construction sign would go up announcing the arrival of a new community and I knew the fate of those triees, that vegitation.”  Ernie followed the signs and photographed the trees before they were razed.  Now, with the bust, all that remains are vacant lots of dirt and tire tracks. Ernie exhibited his series, “Cerealism” at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010.

Photography Atelier at the Griffin Museum

Karen Davis of the Davis Orton Gallery is happy to anounce an exceptional exhibition of photographs by students of Photography Atelier 15 at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester MA from  March 8 to March 25, 2012. If you’re in the Boston area, you’ll enjoy visiting the show.  If you can’t make it, visit the atelier website.  Karen has been teaching the Atelier for a number of years.  She hopes to offer it in Hudson through the Davis Orton Gallery in the near future.

Photography Atelier is a unique portfolio-building course for emerging to advanced photographers.  In addition to guidance and support in the creation of a body of work, the class prepares artists to market, exhibit and present their work to professionals.

In the Atelier, students may choose to photograph with digital media or film; use SLRs, plastic cameras, cell phones, and other methods for image capture and select from the range of options for image presentation.  Instruction in the Atelier includes slide presentations and discussions which consider contemporary trends in photography as well as the history of photography.  Assignments are designed to encourage experimentation in both subject matter and approach. Supportive group critiques help each participant create strong images as well as edit and sequence their work to produce cohesive portfolios. In addition, final formats such as photobooks, mixed and multi-media works and installations are encouraged.  Student work from each class appears in exhibition and on the Photography Atelier website: www.photographyatelier.org.

The Atelier is designed to accommodate repeat enrollment as well as one time participants.  First presented by Holly Smith Pedlosky at Radcliffe Seminars in 1997 and taught by Holly and Karen Davis over the past fifteen years,  the Atelier is very happy to find itself at home at the Griffin Museum of Photography. Karen, Meg Birnbaum, course assistant, and Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director of the Griffin, each first encountered the Atelier as students in the class.

The 2012 line-up of Artists-in-Residence includes John Chervinsky  who exhibited photographs from his series “An Experiment in Perspective” at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010. John will work on a photobook during his residency.

Work by each Artist-in-Residence is published in a special edition of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual along with an essay commissioned by Light Work. Work by former Artists-in-Residence is also part of the Light Work Collection.

Update: Nadine Boughton
Nadine Boughton will deliver the IRIS Lecture at the The Annenberg Space for Photography, in Los Angeles, CA, April 19, 2012  - her topic: Adventures in Digital Collage. Nadine was recently selected a “TOP 50 Finalist” in Photolucida’s Critical Mass.   Nadine’s work will be featured in a Photolucida Touring Exhibition “Contents: Love, Anxiety, Happiness and Everything Else, Critical Mass 2011” Photo Center Northwest (PCNW), Seattle, WA to – March 23; Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR, April 6 – April 29; RayKo Photo Center, San Francisco, CA, May 10 – June 15.

Boughton exhibited in the Davis Orton Gallery in 2009 and returns this summer with her portfolio, True Adventures in Better Homes.

Update: Mary Parisi:
Mary Parisi is having a one person show of work from her series “FOOD” at the University of the Arts Gallery 1401 in Philadelphia. The show is up through March 2 (see below for more info).

This work has been reviewed twice by the newspapers in Philadelphia, most recently in a terrific piece by John Vettese in City Paper, the independent weekly.  ”If abstract art is intended to present viewers with puzzles, Parisi does this with a taste of subversion. She turns our kitchens into alien landscapes, definitely not places you’d care to eat or prepare food.”

Mary’s photobook, “Food” was featured in the Davis Orton Gallery 2nd Annual Photobook Exhibit, 2011.  The 2011 Photobook Catalog will be available on the Davis Orton website for the next year.  Here one may order a book from the exhibit directly from the artist.

Update: Rebecca Doughty
The animal characters that inhabit Doughty’s paintings and drawings represent a kind of theatre, where stories and complex human predicaments are told through subtle gestures.  Several wonderful Doughty little paintings are included in the current exhibition through March 31, “The Calender’s Tales” at 808 Gallery at Boston University.  The exhibition presents work of contemporary artists who invent mythological beings, fantastic creatures, allegorical figures, fictional characters and personal avatars to both humble and heroic proportions in order to critically engage and challenge the concepts of otherness.

Rebecca exhibited at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010.

Update: Mark Haven
Mark Haven recently returned from Cuba where he offered a workshop, “The Idiosyncratic Photographer”, at (ISA) Universidad de las Artes in Havana.  Mark will be exhibiting work from his series, “The Commute” at the Davis Orton Gallery, Spring 2012.

Update: Gordon Stettinius
Gordon Stettinius is a very busy guy.  In the past few months, besides his own fine art photography, as publisher of Candela Books he has produced his second book, the nationally acclaimed “Salt and Truth” by Shelby Lee Adams and opened the Candela Books Gallery in the arts district of Richmond, Virginia.  And he recently announced Candela Unbound First Annual Invitational Exhibition. Gordon’s ongoing series “The Mangini Studio Series”, a collaboration with Terry Brown, was exhibited in a portfolio showcase at Davis Orton Gallery last spring.

Update: Sylvia Plachy
“Panorama of New York” by Sylvia Plachy and Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao — hers – in the moment and his – large format photographs taken over time then pieced together – are part of the inaugural exhibition at the recently re-opened South Seaport Museum. More slides and info in the New Yorker blog, Photo Booth.  Sylvia exhibited at the Davis Orton Gallery in 2010.

Davis Orton Gallery’s, Mark Orton, donned beard (mega beard) and costume to the delight of many dozens of kids at the BeLo3rd tent at Hudson’s 15th Annual Winter Walk (organized by the Hudson Opera House). Karen Davis ladled Vico Restaurant’s eggnog in the gallery in the Eggnog Challenge BeLo3rd. Hudson resident Rachel Samuels sports a frothy mustach after sampling. (“Got Eggnog?”). Santa returned to the gallery in beard so as not to break the spell of believers.

Winter Walk, organized by the Hudson Opera House,  comes to Hudson Saturday December 3, 2011 from 5 to 8 pm.

Photobooks!! 2011

The Gallery currently has Photobooks!! 2011 on display. There are 20 self-published photography books ready for your perusal. Four have been chosen “Best of Show” and there are prints on display from each. These photobooks are original creations in very limited runs. The topics range from food, rock bands, remembrances of present, past and lost to modern Africa. The prices begin at $15. These will make a very original special gift for this holiday season.

BeLo3rd Eggnog Challenge

This year we will again be hosting Vico Restaurant & Bar‘s entry in the BeLo3rd’s Eggnog Challenge. Make sure you visit all ten locations, taste every entry, and vote for your favorite.