My newest gallery is a series of images I created using tiny Peruvian finger puppets. It was great fun placing them into botanical environments and interacting with old toys. Some of the toys were hand made by the kids in our family!
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Tarik Currimbhoy is a renowned architect of large building projects in both the US and India. He has now added sculpture to his achievements, working in both metal and stone; large scale and tabletop. He explores properties of reflection and movement, negative space and shadow in his new work. It has been my joy to try to capture these elements in my photographs. Tarik is represented by Long-Sharp Gallery and Sotheby's.
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From May through December a sampling of my work will be back at Art & Chocolate, a terrific small gallery in Lenox, MA, offering fine art and artisanal chocolate. Lenox is a delightful town and the gallery, at 4 Housatonic Street, is in a terrific location. Stop by and say hello to owner Diana Bartlett.
I also exhibit year-round at Merriman & Pfister, a carefully curated artisan gallery at 388 Kenwood Ave in Delmar, NY. Owner Kathy Agneta will be glad to show you around.
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Two important historical archives have accepted my work:
From 1972-6 I worked for Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon of Puerto Rico. As his aide in the states, I accompanied him on his many trips to New York and Washington, and produced numerous television programs for him in Puerto Rico, such as the first televised news conference. I carried my camera everyplace. Hernandez Colon served as governor again from 1984-92. We remained in touch, but I was working elsewhere. The Rafael Hernandez Colon Library and Cultural Center was inaugurated in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 2016. It is a beautiful combination of two buildings; one a renovated colonial building and the other a new state of the art modern archive of the Governor’s papers and records. My negatives, slides, and campaign ephemera have been added to the collection. There is a beautiful, large exhibit area where a number of my photographs have been printed and hung.
From about 1992-97 I documented sculptor Neil Estern’s creation of the full round statues of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt and their dog Fala for the FDR Memorial Park in Washington DC. These photographs, black & white and color were used in the book Shaping a President: Sculpting for the FDR Memorial Park, written by Kelli Peduzzi, as well as in a number of the brochures and other materials printed by the National Parks Service. I had a number of solo exhibits of these images as well.
These negatives, slides, shooting diary and other materials are now part of the archive of the National Park Service Archives and will be available for research and exhibitions.
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For the past few years, I have been creating images exploring the random ways farmers arrange or don't arrange bales of hay in the fields near my farm in upstate New York. I love the interplay of sky, shape, shadows and color. The first of these photographs to be included in a NYC gallery exhibit was a panoramic image called County Route 22 (the first image in the gallery here). I have since photographed bales juxtaposed with commercial buildings, various posted signs, bales and signs in the snow, and I will continue to expand the portfolio as upstate subjects interest me under the title Rural Imporssions. A group of three of the panoramas received Honorable Mention in an international exhibit in October 2019 at Fotonostrum in Barcelona, Spain.
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My color botanical portfolio is titled BEAUTY IN CONTEXT. I photographed color for the first time in years to explore a fantastic array of unusual plants - including water lilies, lotuses, pitcher plants, gloriosa lilies, passion flowers - with which my husband Robert Peduzzi is experimenting on our farm in Kinderhook, NY. I shoot with a medium format studio camera, scan the film, and print the images digitally on beautiful Hahnemuhle fine art paper. I love the way the rich colors sink into the elegant surface of the paper. These images are printed in two editions of 50; sized 11" x 14" and 16" x 20."
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PORTRAITS FROM THE GARDEN: AN UNCOMMON VIEW is an intimate exploration of the world within my own garden. These tiny segments of nature express beauty of form and movement, strangeness of shape and juxtaposition. They are portraits of buds not yet flowered, mushrooms underfoot, flowers past their prime, insects that are beautiful and strange, each taking its place upon a rural stage.
My frame of reference is portraiture. I studied with Philippe Halsman, and the principals he taught guide me in this work. What has remained with me from those sessions are his ironclad rules of technique filtered through his subtle wit. I have also long admired the work of August Sander, who long documented the range of middle class people in his native Westerwald. He created a comprehensive study of the enormous variety of individuals living and working in that region of Germany, highlighting individual occupations, and including references to these factors. My goal is to document the diversity of daily life within the context of my garden, remaining as unobtrusive as possible, and at the same time share the sense of life and death, wonder and wit that I find there.
I have now begun to take this vision to a new level by carefully choosing a small group of images from this project and greatly enlarging them. These digital enlargements are 24" x 36." They look fabulous and present an entirely different perspective on these tiny portraits, appearing both realisic and surrealistic.
The darkroom images in this portfolio are archivally printed, by me, in editions of 35. Each image is 5 x 7 inches printed on 8 x 10 paper, split toned dark sepia on matte fiber paper, retaining black elements. Signature and number are on the reverse. These are small, powerful velvety images.
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In November 2002, I attended a showcase of modern dance choreography in which the work of Isabel Gotzkowsky clearly stood out as beautiful, thought-provoking and athletically challenging for the dancers. When I discussed Gotzkowsky's work with her after the performance, I became curious about the processof choreographing new work. I attended a number of rehearsals, bringing my camera with me.
Photographing dancers in rehearsal is a formidable task. The rehearsal studios used by small dance companies vary from gritty and industrial to modern and coolly efficient. I became fascinated with reflections in mirrors, the intensity of creation, moments of rest. The constant movement and the ever changing lighting conditions made it particularly challenging for me, but I felt lucky to observe and be part of Isabel's artistry and her ability to involve her dancers in this collaborative process.
The first solo exhibit of this work, at Williamsburg Art neXus in October-November 2003, BECOMING DANCE: IMAGES OF A PROCESS, was my impression of that experience. Many of the images from that show are in this web gallery and have since appeared in other solo and group exhibits and publications. Isabel and her husband Jon Zimmerman now live in Berlin, Germany, where they own a pilates studio and continue to create wonderful dances.
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SHAPING A PRESIDENT: SCULPTING FOR THE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL (from the book of the same name) took shape over a five year period. I documented sculptor Neil Estern as he sculpted maquettes and larger models in clay, enlarged them at Tallix Art Foundry, and supervised bronze casting to create the full-round statues of FDR, Eleanor and Fala for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Park in Washington, DC. At each stage of creation, I was struck by the forceful personae emerging out of inert substances. My challenge was to illustrate the unfolding emotional relationship between the sculptor's artistic intensity and the complex personalities of the President and First Lady emerging from armature and clay. I have hundreds of images in both black & white and color from this project. Only a small sample are in this gallery. Please call or send me an email if you would like to see more.