Ryan Parker, Landscape Photo Prophet

Photographers have been combining art and documenting the landscape since the invention of the first cameras. During the 1930’s Great Depression, a New Deal Agency, the Farm Security Administration was created. The FSA was created to combat rural poverty, today it is known for its highly influential photography program, now these photos are considered national treasures.

These photos documented the drought and the misuse of the land. Today, Ryan Parker is serving as a modern landscape photographer. Part prophet, part photojournalist, he creates minimalistic photographs to warn us about transforming the landscape for profit. He is not a fire and brimstone preacher or activist, instead his understated photographs with subdued graphic content remind us of the desolate landscape. Parker's images of nature or industrial sites could be compared to the famous Danish photographer, Per Bak Jensen. They both photograph unusual subjects, like twigs and bushes in the snow and strange concrete formations that appear to be underpasses.

Looking as his recent art statements, he is not directly asking these questions, however you sense they are in the back of his mind:

Are these suburbs being built in a flood zone for real estate profit?
Are these billboard signs blocking our mountain view?
Are these new suburbs destroying future agricultural development?
Do industrial parks, storage containers and snow filled parking lots contain beauty?
Are we trading land conservation for efficiency?

His landscape photographs are unsettling and perplexing. Not one of his photos includes the human figure, which adds to uncanny and mysterious photos. The viewer looks at the industrial shipping containers with snow piles and winter barren trees. This photograph captures the spatial forms that occur in everyday life with a reduced minimalist-style. Yet is Parker photographing sculpture, like three Donald Judd’s metal boxes, or is this an industrial waste site with abandoned containers?

Clearly, Lewis Baltz, a minimalist photographer and a prominent representative of the New Topographics movement has been a coach and mentor to Parker. Whereas, Baltz is deceased, Parker is capturing energy from the art form that was created before he was born. Parker, examines Baltz strategies, and then expands on contemporary land issues, industrial/storage parks with repetitive grids, abandoned gravel pits, snow piles and frozen parking lots. He uses the light from the night billboard and reduces it to land art, as it might be a temporary Smithson Spiral Jetty.

Parker’s photo series document the contemporary industrial landscape, reducing each photo to its minimalistic hypnotic form. He deploys everyday scenes that appear outside our comfort zone, implementing photography techniques that disturb our visual senses. It is this skill, knowledge of photography and passion that makes him a modern landscape prophet.

Mr. Parker's complete photo essay can be found at: https://www.ryanparker.info/

Japanese Wooden Dolls: Kokeshi-Ningyo "こけし－人形"

This article is dedicated to my Japanese (nihongo) Sensei, Atsuko Kuwana, who helped me learn to speak Japanese. Collectors come in all varieties, some plan their collections, others start by chance. I saw my first kokeshi（こけし） wooden doll in 2005 while participating in a grassroutes exchange program between the U.S. and Japan. I was staying with a family near Nagoya and the couple’s young daughter had one. Years later when I was named a Mike Mansfield Fellow from the U.S. government to the Japanese government, and was living in Japan, I would see them frequently at flea markets and souvenir shops next to the natural hot spring resorts in the area known as Tohoku. Before leaving for Japan, I studied all things Japanese at the George Shultz Foreign Service Institute (FSI), including a professor that covered domestic and family life and some short statements on kokeshi. After arriving in Japan, the National Personnel Authority ( jinjiin ) was responsible for...

MARCEL (Marcella Anderson) Torpedo Factory Artist

Marcella Anderson and/or Marcy Anderson (1946 - 2015) was better known as "MARCEL", a popular serigraph/silkscreen artist, at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in historic Old Town Alexandria, VA. She maintained a gallery and work space at the Torpedo Factory from 1976 to 2015. At the top of the stairs on the 3rd floor was this large light filled studio with a charming blonde woman surrounded by her silkscreens. In the early 80s, her work consisted mostly of water reptiles, fish, birds and environmental scenes. She kept with nature themes during most of her time at the studio. Her obituary stated: "Marcel was known for her bold, yet sensitive, use of color and design. Her images in all media reflected her love of nature. Her glowing color, both intense and delicate, was achieved through the use of transparent layers of color." Marcel was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and studied at the Cornish School of Allied Arts. Before arriving in the DC area, she had ...

Walter von Gunten - Scherenschnitter Artist

In the 1990's R. A. Baumgart, wrote an article for the Journal (Wisconsin Newspaper) entitled: Scissors Art: the Lace That Takes a Million Snips. The subtitle was: For Sheer Intricacy, It's Hard to Top the Delicate Folk Art of Long Ago Europe. Baumgart's knowledge was helpful in creating this blog. Scissor cutting art has been practiced in much of Europe for centuries, but the work has now faded. It reached its peak about 200 years ago. It was the people's art, and when done by the Germans and Swiss it is called scherenschnitte. When accomplished by the these two groups, the work tends to be more delicate and more detailed in design. Scherenschnitte was cut from single sheets of paper and pasted on a contrasting paper background. Common subjects were fantasies of trees, elves or rural scenes. "Bird in the Bushes" Cut Black and Gold Paper on White Mat Board Framed: Approx. 20 X 16.5 Inches Signed Lower Left:...

Waller-Yoblonsky Fine Art

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