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Being a part of the Exhibition Committee at Blue Sky gave my husband and I the amazing opportunity to host Arthur while he was visiting Portland for the opening of his March 2013 show. I was already excited about being able to hang out with him. Excitement turned to giddiness when he mentioned in an email that he had been asking photographers to photograph him in the nude, and asked if I would be interested.

So, of course it was great to hangout with one of my Art Heros, to run around Portland and break the law trespassing on Ross Island while he made photographs. It was invaluable to have him look at my work and give me feedback and he was incredibly endearing as he tried to infuse me with some “Jewish Moxie”, but what really rocked my world was photographing Arthur Tress.

I have been working on a new photo series about clowns, and I thought it might be the perfect fit to incorporate Arthur’s request to be photographed in the nude into this new body of work. We had been tossing around ideas for a few days and we scheduled the shoot for the morning of his last day in town. My hopes were for a pretty straightforward portrait: clown face, clown shoes, and little else. Arthur wanted to do an homage to Emmett Kelly’s famous clown persona “Weary Willie,” whose iconic act involved sweeping a pool of light under a rug.

I wanted to shoot outside and, of course, it was classic Portland spring weather: 40 degrees and drizzly. We start shooting and it’s going well; I was getting the photos we had intended to make. We had been working for about 30 minutes and we were doing the homage with an oversized rose and a mound of flour and I felt like we had got it. Arthur is 72 years old, he’s naked and starting to shiver, so I said “it’s good…we got it, were done.” There was a moment of exhale, a letting go, and then it was like a switch flipped and Magic happened. Arthur grabs a handful of flour and starts rubbing it all over his body, he then proceeds to fill the giant rose with flour and pouring it over his head in an insane enactment of pollination. Then he starts spewing mouthfuls of flour into the air, ending the crazy clown act with a mouthful of overtly sexual spittle. For me, it was a moment of transcendence when the photographer and the model become true collaborators, when the intentions of both parties is surpassed to create something new and unexpected.

Photos © 2013 Adrain Chesser, used by permission of the artist and Arthur Tress.

It’s in these moments that I as “the photographer,” “the artist,” disappear and the machine that is in my hands is no longer a machine, but something more akin to the eye of God and for a few brief shinning moments we are elevated above the mundane.

UPDATE! Allan Chasanoff has reviewed all submissions and made selections for the exhibition. All entrants will be notified of their status via email by end-of-day Friday, April 12.

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CALL FOR ENTRIES: The Optical

We’ve all had the experience of looking at a photograph and not being able to decipher it right away. We ask ourselves “What am I looking at?” Photographer and collector Allan Chasanoff became a connoisseur of this interval of confusion before the image resolves. He found a visceral pleasure in confronting an image that refused to make visual sense, delighting in its resistance and delighting again when that resistance was overcome – a delicious tension and release.

“To be hit by a dislocation transcends the visual alone, and there is a momentary visceral response. It stuns me. It interrupts the stare and startles me. Thus, a major part of my effort in collecting pictures was to find those that did that. The photograph, the genre, the history and the aura of the picture are secondary to this shock. That is why I collected so-called straight images, for a dislocation in the usual.” – Allan Chasanoff

Mr. Chasanoff spent nearly 20 years collecting more than 1,200 photographs, many of which embodied this optical problem in photography (“the Optical”), and donated that collection to Yale University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Now he has agreed to jury for Blue Sky a show of your (single-exposure, color or black-and-white, non-Photoshop, “straight”) photographs that resist immediate visual deciphering. Digitally shot photographs are acceptable as long as they have not been manipulated or altered with Photoshop or other image-editing applications.

For examples of the the type of photos Mr. Chasanoff is seeking for this exhibition, follow this link to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and reference these publications: First Doubt – Optical Confusion in Modern Photography: Selections from the Allan Chasanoff Collection and Tradition and the Unpredictable.

• What do I send? – 8″x10″ or 8.5″x11″ unmatted and unmounted prints. Mr. Chasanoff will make his selections from the very print(s) you submit. Please, send no more than three prints. For this call, digital files can not be accepted. All prints will be returned to you.

• Where do I send them? – The Optical, Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209, USA. Please label your prints on the back with your name, contact information, as well as title, date, medium, and exhibition print size.

• When do I send them? – They need to arrive at Blue Sky by 5:00 PM, Friday, March 1, 2013.

• What is the entry fee? – There isn’t one. Blue Sky is funded by its members and supporters. If you like what we do, please join us.

• When is the actual show? – July 5–28, 2013.

• What if Mr. Chasanoff is deliciously visually confused enough by my work to select it for the show? – We will inform you right away and request that you send a framed print to Blue Sky for exhibition by June 21, 2013. Blue Sky will cover costs for return shipment.

• Is this show going to be great? – Yes.

• Whom do I contact with questions? – Lisa Martel, Blue Sky’s Exhibition Coordinator, lisamartel@blueskygallery.org

Portland was the site of an exciting event in the world of photographic studies this past fall. For three days, from October 19 through 21, a group of emerging photography curators, historians, and nonprofit professionals gathered from around the US, Canada, and the UK for the first meeting of a new network: FOCUS. Blue Sky’s Executive Director, Todd J. Tubutis, partnered with the Portland Art Museum‘s Minor White Curator of Photography, Julia Dolan, to co-organize this inaugural event.

After a tour of Newspace Center for Photography and the Portland Art Museum’s photo galleries, the weekend officially began with a Welcome Reception at the lumber room and exhibition preview of Terrain Shift, featuring photographs and video from the collection of Sarah Miller Meigs. Despite a (typical) rainy Friday evening, FOCUS:PDX attendees also had the great opportunity to meet more than 40 invited curators, gallerists, artists, and other professionals from Portland’s thriving arts community.

On Saturday, everyone gathered for a day-long conversation about the purpose and goals of FOCUS, including an incredibly fruitful session where each participant shared with the group their research interests as well current and future projects. The day undoubtedly ended with new contacts and ideas for collaborative exhibitions and publications.  But wait…there was more!

Drs. Stu Levy and Cris Maranze hosted FOCUS:PDX at their home that evening for a viewing of their extensive photography collection, and some tasty appetizers by Cheese and Crack.

After a lovely dinner at Luce, the group convened again the next morning at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art for breakfast, then concluded the conference with a session here at Blue Sky. That Sunday, just before Noon, everyone present came to agreement on a concise identity statement for this new exciting network:

“FOCUS is a non-commercial collaborative network of emerging curators, academics, and other professionals who further the understanding of photography through research, scholarship, exhibition, and publication.“

Huzzah! A handy pdf of the statement is available here.

There was overwhelmingly positive response from those who came to Portland for the conference. As one participant summarized her experience, “it was wonderful to meet so many fellow-emerging curators and academics, many of whom I’ve known only by name or email. I love the idea that we will all ‘grow up together’ in this business, which makes networking among us now invaluable. It was thrilling to hear about the research, publication, and exhibition projects that members of this group are developing. I’ve already made plans for collaboration with several people from the meeting. Without this opportunity to meet and exchange ideas, that collaboration would not have taken shape.”

FOCUS will convene again next year in New Orleans, hosted by Russell Lord, Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art, and then in Phoenix in 2014, co-hosted by Rebecca Senf of the Center for Creative Photography and the Phoenix Art Museum and Kate Palmer Albers of the University of Arizona.

FOCUS:PDX was supported, in part, by the Portland Art Museum, Regional Arts & Culture Council, Sarah Miller Meigs and the lumber room, The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, Portland Art Focus, Portland Art Dealers Association, Fraenkel Gallery, and Blue Sky, the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts. Co-organizers Julia Dolan and Todd J. Tubutis would like to express their gratitude to the leadership of their respective institutions for supporting this endeavor.

Photos: Nina Johnson; FOCUS logo: RWH.

Have a look at the remarkable group of artists selected for 2012′s Critical Mass Top 50 here.

Like them all? To see one image from each Top 50 photographers in person, make a point of seeing the traveling exhibition, curated by WM Hunt, that will show at a Jennifer Schwartz venue in Atlanta and the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach in the summer of 2013.

Mark your calendars!