Abelardo Morell: two shows and one lecture

Two shows of pinhole/camera obscura photographer Abelardo Morell‘s work are wrapping up in the next week. One at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College in Amherst, MA, US, closes this Sunday, 20 January, 2008 (details here).

The other, at the University of New England Art Gallery at Westbrook College Campus in Portland, ME, US, closed the following one, on Sunday, 27 January, 2008. (See the gallery site for more info.)

He’ll also be in San Francisco, CA, US on Friday, 25 January, 2008, giving a talk at the San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall at 800 Chestnut Street at 7:30pm. $10 general admission.

Anne-Claude Cotty "Extolling Pinhole Cameras in a Digital Age" lecture, ME, US

The Hancock County Cultural Network’s February Brown-Bag Lunch series will feature Anne-Claude Cotty of Stonington, who will present a talk titled "Extolling Pinhole Cameras in a Digital Age" at the Blue Hill Library on Wednesday, Feb. 7, at noon. As an active member of many community cultural organizations, Cotty will also address the artist’s responsibility to society in general.

Cotty produces prints, artist books, experimental photography and, recently, jewelry using photographic images. She will describe the process of making rudimentary cameras with household materials and the soft-focus and inadvertent effects they can capture on film. What many will recall as a science project in fourth grade, she elevates to a magical tool in creating multi-layered, poetic images. And the photographic darkroom, replaced by so many photographers with computers and printers, remains a vital place for making photographs by hand.

A studio artist and educator for over 30 years, Cotty received an MFA in printmaking from the University of Alberta. She maintains her own gallery in Stonington and offers workshops for all ages in printmaking and pinhole cameras in her studios. She is also an art teacher on Isle au Haut and Frenchboro. Her work has been widely published and exhibited throughout this country and abroad and can be found in many collections including the Portland Museum of Art. She is the former executive director of the Hancock County Cultural Network.

The Brown-Bag Lunch is free and participants are encouraged to bring their lunch. Coffee and tea will be provided. The Brown-Bag Lunch series is sponsored in part by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council.

The talk starts at 12:00pm at the Blue Hill Library, 5 Parker Point Rd., Blue Hill, ME, US.

Via Pinhole Visions

Photography as Witness show, Klaus Knoll, Cella, Orono, ME, US

Group show of six photographers. One part, "Home Studies" by Cella & Knoll, is pinhole photography with a twist:

"Process: We blacken the rooms with tarp and tape, then allow sketchy ambient light to seep through, illuminating the interior without losing the upside down exterior projection created by a single small hole, transforming the room into a giant camera obscura. We then photograph the rooms with a 4×5 for anywhere between four hours and a week."

The show runs Friday, 9 February – 9 March, 2007 at The University of Maine‘s Art Gallery, 5743 Lord Hall, Orono, ME, US. Weekday gallery hours are from 9am to 4pm.

Via Pinhole Visions