Rachel Bedet (Curator)

June 6th - June 30th, 2013

The show brings together a variety of artists who work in photography in uncommon ways.  On display are polaroids, tintypes on metal and glass, pinhole camera images, transparent images on glass canned in jars, albumen prints, palladium prints on vellum, images printed on the inside of eggs, and wet collodion photograms.  All these mediums and methods are considered alternative because they are not the current commercial standard for photographic work.

Alternative processes are often labeled historical, but rather than being a showcase of old processes being used contemporaneously, the show emphasizes how the divergent processes inform a viewer’s experience of the object on the wall.

The curator states, “not being in complete control of the picture taking or printing fosters a productive conversation between the artist and his/her materials and process; creation tends to occur in that exchange".  Work is discovered a posteriori -- as the result of creative inquiry.

The works, because they are often the result of a great deal of experimentation, bear the traces of their making.  Pinhole cameras have no view finder, some color emulsions have unpredictable outcomes, and printing processes like wet collodion create one-of-a-kind objects as every attempt yields a unique printing surface featuring ghostly streaks and drips.

Alternative process photographic artists working off the beaten path find themselves in a world of unusual creative possibilities.  Though the standards for what constitutes a good photographic print remain unchanged, the questions of how the image is captured, how the image is printed and on what are up to the individual artist to answer.

Featuring artists: D.M. Witman, Gretjen Helene, Jenn Libby, Jess Robson, John Hirsch, Lindsay Metivier, Rachel Bedet and S. Gayle Stevens.

(click artist names for websites!)