08.05.09
Pittsburgh does f295
In all the crazy traveling I’ve been doing lately, some trips are to places that I know I want to visit, and some places aren’t quite on my mental map (although anywhere is fair game on a road trip!). Pittsburgh wasn’t on my must-see list, but the invitation was a no-brainer anyway. And I’m so glad I went, for the photo fun, for seeing a cool new place, and for catching up with an old friend.
Sometime last year, I was contacted by Tom Persinger about being part of the f295 Symposium. Originally a group about lensless photography, which includes not only pinhole, but cameraless processes as well, it has expanded to include other old, alternative, and interesting processes, and this year, they brought me in to represent the toys; I’m honored! We gave a day of talks in New York in January (brr!), but this was the real shindig, with people flying in from all over, and several days of workshops before and after the symposium day. The group of speakers was awesome, and more so to me because I got to hang out and talk with most of them, all such interesting, accomplished people. It was really such a gift to be up there with them, speaking to the group, and teaching my workshop.
Mark Ostermann talking about his days as a traveling snake oil salesman, and how that led into the world of photography
Saturday evening was a lovely dinner with Patrick and Sherry from Freestyle, and the many members of their Advisory board who were among the presenters (Jill Enfield, Elizabeth Opalenik, Mark Ostermann, France Scully Ostermann, etc) (thanks Gerry!). Freestyle had a table set up, as usual covered almost exclusively with Holgas, including the New and Thrilling Holga TLR!!! I only heard about this new contraption a couple of days before I flew out, and it was very exciting to hold the only one in the US! I’ve been assured I’ll be getting a hold of one soon – yippee!!
Saturday the workshops were held at Pittsburgh Filmmakers (I keep wanting to call it Filmwasters, after a low-tech photography web site), which is an amazing facility with a bunch of darkrooms and classrooms, a great cafe run by Dave, who looks like he is straight out of Portland, but instead is brining his great vibe and food to Pittsburgh, and a dedicated staff and volunteers. One thing Pittsburgh doesn’t lack is space – you can get a warehouse, a killer darkroom, a fabulous house, for a song here. It’s a favorite pastime of Pittsburgh folks, in fact – torturing the rest of us with what they paid for their houses… So while I had my toy camera class going on, people were learning about daguerrotypes, wet collodion printing, making silhouettes and their own lenses. All the presenters were in the classes as well, which made for a super-vibrant environment for everyone.
Tom Persinger welcoming students to the classes at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. My toy camera class loading their Holgas.
Saturday evening was the opening of the exhibition that the presenters and some of the participants were in, at 707 Penn Gallery. It was really great to see the prints up close and in the paper, since we had mostly been seeing projected images of the photographs; always a pale imitation of the real thing, and we were here to geek about process. There was more chatting long into the night, and the next day on the photo walk and back at Filmmakers.
All in all, a great event, that introduced me to several new processes and lots of great people!
I also got a private tour of the Mattress Factory Museum, which housed a few of us over the weekend. The museum, which mostly features installations, was closed on Monday, but when I went over to the office to settle up, the building manager saw my disappointment and pulled out the keys. This place has been around as an art space for 30 years, and indeed, some of the permanent installations are 20 years old! A more recent one was mind-boggling; a kind of over-sized laundry shoot that gapes open in the middle of the floor and teases you with the thought of throwing yourself in; to me it was a much edgier version of the type of things I saw at Olafer Elliason’s exhibition at Boston’s ICA last summer. It’s a world-class museum, with the amount of space it would be impossible to support in any of the art centers we like to think have the art thing all wrapped up. So glad I got to see it! Oh, and down the alley where the main entrance is, a beautiful old brick building stands, its window replaced by gravestones, carved with the names and ages of people who lived there (in the area) in the 1700s; immigrants who led hard lives. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen; beautifully crafted and deeply moving.
Once again, I feel very lucky that my work is allowing me to do such fun things, visit cool places, and meet great people!
~Michelle