seeMagazine ISSUE 1 SPRING 2013

see

premiere issue

seeMagazine is dedicated to showcasing established and emerging fine artists in the greater Puget Sound area.

Issue 1, Spring 2013 seemagazine.net

Series of a Polaroid. Polaroid scanned every three minutes from the start of development. Photo taken by Morgan Cadigan. Polaroid OneStep, PX 680 Color Protection film made by the Impossible Project. Cover photo by Morgan Cadigan.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR June 7, 2013

“Sight is... all knowledge obtained through intellect” Thomas Aquinas, (Summa Theologica, Q. 67, Art. 1).

Dear Reader, Within the following pages, you will find eleven artists who strive and actively engage to identify and articulate beauty itself, as its own form.

Much like the Polaroid photograph pictured in its ascending stages of development, I pray that you may gain an intimate insight from these artists and that their shared perspectives will lead you onto a similar step-wise journey in pursuit of beauty. To “see”, according to Plato, is the first rung of a ladder to understanding beauty that is constant, eternal, the one from which all other beautiful things commune: the truth.

I am thankful to all the artists who have participated in this project, for allowing us all to see through their collective lens, for making a complex pursuit an exciting and tangible one.

Sincerely,

Morgan Cadigan

seeMagazine can be viewed at seemagazine.net Print copies are available at blurb.com

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seeMagazine presents: FEATURES

6 Cory Verellen 18 Liz Maxfield 26 Paul Butzi SELECTED WORKS

16 Jenny Vorwaller 24 Justin Mata 36 Jaq Chartier EMERGING ARTISTS

38 Alex King 41 Jacqueline Hom 42 Vanessa Kent 43 Zoha Syed 44 Julia List 46 Joy Twentyman

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CORY VERELLEN

FEATURE

Temple of Juno Cory Verellen Polaroid 195 Polaroid 669 (exp. 2007) 2012

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CORY VERELLEN Self-portrait courtesy of the artist

SM: How did you start photography?

Or instant photography? Or whatever you want to talk about.

CV: I’d never picked up a camera, never had an interest whatsoever until about late 2006. Never even had one growing up. People around me did, my family did, you know, of course we all had cameras in families, whatever, but I never really took interest in it. And I think it’s probably because the only photography I was really exposed to was snapshot, the “smile and say Facebook!” photography.

So about 2006 that was the time that the first generation of digital SLR cameras had come and they were into the second phase. The improvements were coming at an almost vertical rate from where they had started three or four years before that. And so, the prices had come way down, it was accessible to average folks, the product lines were coming out; I started seeing this type of photography that people were taking with these nice cameras, and it really blew me away.

I can remember the moment, I said, ‘It’s time to get a camera’. Not really knowing what that meant, it was kind of an intuitive thing just a ‘It’s time to get a camera’.

FEATURE

CoryVerellen, pictured with his wife Tali Edut, owns and keeps Rare Medium, which is located in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Rare Medium serves as a gallery directed by Justin Mata, as well as a studio space for Cory to conduct his art-form, as he specializes in repairing and transforming Polaroid cameras. Check them out at raremediumseattle.com.

So I immersed myself into photography for like two straight years – in photographic theory, the entire gamut of what we as a society has learned in the last hundred and sum odd years. Basically, I tell people, I gave myself a masters degree in photography just by doing my own research, and that’s how I’ve always done everything I do. I get interested in something, and I dive all the way in.

He worked at a shipping company, big warehouse. When product would come in that was damaged, they would take a picture of it with the Polaroid, and then mail it, back in the old days, mail it to the person who shipped it, or the shipping company, so they had documentation of the damage. Obviously, in the digital age that got replaced with a simple digital camera, but that camera never really got thrown away.

When that drive for knowledge started burning itself out the interest in His company closed down, so he grabbed photography was still there. it and gave it to me. And I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ It was a Land camera.

You see boys do this a lot where they get all gear-head about something, once that So it sat in my drawer, and one day I burned itself out in me, the gear head picked it up and with ten minutes of part of the toys, the desire to engage in research online, I figured out that it photography was still there. It allowed me was usable, they still made film. What to set the toys down. It was overriding my the hell, why not? So I ordered a couple ability to actually see the photograph. I packs of film. I remember so clearly, I was too worried about the settings of the went out for a walk out by Pike Place camera.

Market, and I remember the first three photographs just being, ‘Wait what? I In this time, I had collected vast amounts can do what with this, and it does what?’ of photographic equipment of all varying fully getting it, and realizing that this ranges. I still collect stuff, but I didn’t was kind of my way out of gear-heading know what to do with it back then. I had about photographic equipment. this whole drawer of cameras I had never used, and one day I picked up a camera that This was a simple camera, but the results my father had given me that they had used that were produced were so much at his company since the 1960s. more like my vision of the way I see photography, the way I see the world. At

that time, that was 2007, I had started friends of friends cameras. I’d come home processing my digital photographs to from work spending another five, six, look analog, realizing it, but not fully hours building these cameras. grasping what I was doing.

And at that point I figured I needed a website There was that transition period where [landcameras.com]. That took off. Our I started to pick up film cameras, to house became a shrine to all these Polaroid see what the appeal was there. And parts, and my workshop was in the house. there was an overlap time where I was So I got a studio space, and I worked there. shooting both digital and analog, where My life just kind of transitioned naturally I was spending two or three hours on into getting this space [Rare Medium]. processing one photograph and what I end up with would be the same thing It just came, happened. I fought it too. I was that I could take a shot with my film like, I do not want to become a shopkeeper, cameras, or the Polaroid.

I’d rather work on these cameras. What keeps me interested, is in building, is having At some point I said, you know what, a vision of what I can build on a camera, or I’m using the wrong tool to produce a camera I could build, and then putting what I want to produce. So that was my that into motion. Building it, realizing it, exit, I finally realized [digital] was the and then using that camera that’s uniquely wrong tool to produce the image I could something that I have built that maybe has see in my head. new features or an adapter or a piece. Like your camera, with the focus, that what Now I have a much clearer line between keeps me interested. When I can make when I use digital and when I use analog something unique, and not do the same photography. I can see now, when’s the thing over and over and over. right time.

How would you describe your The digital world is fantastic, I love what photography? you can do with it, and there’s a great I happen to be the default photographer for time and place for it, but I don’t try and many situations, but when I’m doing it for make it do what it doesn’t like to do myself or when I’m actually trying to put for me. I have other things to do than a vision that I have in motion or realize it, spending hours and hours processing a I think that I’m most interested in what is photo. If something doesn’t come out intangible – things that I can’t control. just right with a piece of film, I’m not obsessively fixing it.

Through Polaroid cameras and photography there’s so many variables that So, I think that’s kind of the story of are untouchable. It’s cliché to say but it’s how I ended up here. Then I got kind the happy accident. of obsessive about collecting Polaroids.

And because I’m an engineer, I’d buy But I think what I’m looking for is, I’m them and they’d be broken, and so I had dancing around this word because I don’t to take them apart and figure out what like to use it because it’s well overused made them tick.That led to a lot of fixed but, the surreal. But I think my work cameras, so I started giving them away that’s closest to me is surreal. It bends our to people and those people who had my perception of what and who we are and cameras would talk to their friends, and how we interact with the world, and for say ‘Hey, where’d you get that? I want me, it causes me to have to recalculate how one of those’ and then I’d sell those I view something.

Like this photo is a good example of that [see page 10]. There’s no real point of reference, there’s no context in our world for how this looks. No horizon line, no nothing, and a dragon, what?

We don’t have that, but it’s obviously a photo, it was obviously something real.

That speaks pretty closely to the way I see it. I’m not a very good documentarian.

I don’t see in portraits. I don’t do things that interact with people all that much.

I think that in my test shots, when I’m testing these cameras, I think that my vision for how I see, and how I interact with photography even comes through.

A lot of the same thing, and I’m not thinking whatsoever about the aesthetics of the shot, I’m thinking about is the camera working. But I see patterns in the way I take those shots, and I repeat the same themes over and over again.

So it’s an unconscious thing.

Yea, it’s definitely unconscious. You’re asking a question, which I don’t really have an answer for. I can say what it is on the outside, but really photography to me, is something that happens on the inside and it’s my own form of communication with myself and the outside world. How it’s perceived, or how I really perceive it is not the whole story.

Do you think that’s the importance of art or photography in general?

It is something different to every person, in an altruistic and idealistic way, sure.

But you meet people who are engaged in art for self-aggrandizement, a vendetta, they’re getting out their anger, it’s more of a psychological grinding stone that they have, that they use. In that sense, it’s what they can’t see.

To put a broad statement on what art’s (continued on pages 12-15)

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In the Age of Knights Cory Verellen Polaroid 180 ID-UV film (exp. 2007) 2009

FEATURE

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purpose is, I don’t know. It’s different for every person. And that’s the beauty of the broad thing that we might call art, that is - we can each find our own unique way to engage with something.

It’s not just photography, I think we’re talking about life in general here – to be honest with yourself without tearing yourself down, though true honesty is cold and calculating. ‘This is what I like, this is what it is, and this is the way it’s not’, I Who or what do you take pictures think that’s the only useful feedback we can for? give ourselves – real self honesty and not Self-exploration. When you take the deceiving ourselves about what we like and photo that really speaks to you, it’s what we don’t like. beyond a real tangible thing that you can hold on to. I don’t think it’s selfish, It’s cool, because that’s how your it’s self-exploration. If I were to take pictures are. It has to be honest photos for other people, I think that is because it’s a photo, but it doesn’t more selfish. Because then I would just look right. be looking for their praise, and that’s the Right, blurring that line between what you most selfish thing you can do. Doing it can manipulate and what you can’t. With for yourself, and your self-exploration, digital, there’s that, ‘Well, I don’t know truly, is almost selfless. I’m not looking if it’s real’. We seem to be attached to it for validation from the outside world of being real, but this is kind of the tangible, what I do. visceral evidence that this is the way it was.

You have to do it for yourself. I just know that there’s that moment, where you look at a photo that all these little pieces lined up just the way they should, that I never really could have planned.

That’s why I say I’m not really a portrait photographer, somehow I can’t orchestrate things like that beyond a certain level.

And there are those things other than art where there is something you feel that you can’t describe.

Yea, that’s what I was talking about. You know this works. And for me, when I’m looking at my own, I know this works.

If this is my piece, I have some sort of attachment to it. I know that this works.

Somebody else might look at a piece that I know didn’t work for me, but it works great for them.

That’s the self-exploration process.

Where we start to answer those questions like, what do we like and what don’t we like, and to be brutally honest with ourselves.

FEATURE

My favorite is probably the 669 based, peel-apart Polaroid films. The 669 family, which took that photo [see page 10] would be my favorite, the one that fades to blue.

All of these are 669 [see page 13].

It’s interesting because it’s a play on opposites because it’s obviously so blue, but the yellows are there too. Those are at opposite ends of the light spectrum, where you have blue and yellow. So it’s like this play on opposites, which makes it my favorite.

Do you have a current favorite artist? Yourself?

I don’t consider myself an artist.

Why not?

I define artist is that’s all they do. If you were to ask me what my art is, I would I use the medium, or Polaroid be more likely to say the art of building photographers, use the medium, in that cameras would be closer to my medium. moment to create the photo, not as a secondary thought afterwards.

My medium is plastic and metal and glass, rather than the photographs So you think the medium is very produced. I’m just trying to be honest, important? because that’s what I spend most of my Yea, it is everything in Polaroid photography, time at. or even film photography to some extent.

In that context, if you can grant me that Favorite camera and film type? building cameras is an art, I don’t really I guess favorite means, the one that has have anybody I’m looking up to, or my stuck around with me throughout. Because favorite artist. I don’t know of anybody I’ll get fascinated with a different aspect of else that’s doing what I do. I can’t point photography, and then two months later, to somebody.

I’ll be on to a different aspect.

There’s a ton of fantastic Polaroid artists I’d probably say the Land camera would be out there. I love just seeing what people my favorite so far – the one that has stuck are doing, and the different directions with me and has risen to the top there. It of what people take and push it in. was also my first camera, my first Polaroid. There’s some really great specialists out there who have developed their own I’m going to be really sad and disappointed, techniques and who are a pleasure to if I’ll be able to continue with what I do, look at and see what they’re producing when the original Polaroid film is all gone. to this day.

Because the Fujifilm doesn’t age. Or I haven’t figured out how to age it like the They’re favorites in a sense that I really Polaroid film, it stays too nice. enjoy looking at their photos, but I

Untitled Cory Verellen Polaroid 195 Polaroid 669 (exp. 1995) 2012

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Untitled Cory Verellen Polaroid Sonar SX-70 Polaroid Sonar SX-70 f2b film 2010

FEATURE

would never consider doing art in the way that they’re doing. So I’m going to tap-dance all around that question, nothings jumping out. I just enjoy engaging in the medium that is instant photography and seeing the different, the so wide and varying results, that people come up with, I guess, as a whole.

long and we see a lot of art, a lot of people coming to us.

So you would suggest networking to local artists who want to get their stuff out there?

Yea, if by “network” you mean engage people in genuine conversations about what you’re doing as an artist and why it’s important to you, and what moves you It’s the community aspect. about your own art, and/or maybe an Yea, it’s the community that has taken underlying theme or context for your art. a limiting medium and made it so That gives people something real to hold much more broad than what it was on to. initially could be or was supposed to be.

You’ll find lots of folks that are just really interested in showing their stuff, but How do you find out about what makes the difference is the personal significant local artists? connection. And to be able to put the We [with business partner Justin person you’re proposing your show to, in Mata] are Rare Medium, which your shoes, and give them insight into what means we are trying to step outside you’re talking about with your art. of the significant artists.We are trying to discover folks that aren’t showing. It’s building relationships, but being real We are looking for people who may about it. not be getting the exposure outside of the coffee shop gallery, you know, Art in itself is the most personal thing, one we want to present in a real gallery of the most personal things that we do. We space. put our inner morale on the outside, like that, or something cliché I can say right If you are around Seattle, or any really there. Not everybody is in the head-space artsy in a town for long enough, you to really consume what you’re talking realize the same fifty people are about or what you’re saying with your art. showing at all the different galleries. And to build the skills to be able to build the They just kind of migrate, you know, bridge to the person you’re trying to get a new show shows up at this gallery, across to is probably the most important. and it’s the same person who shows over here. Which is fine and great, You know what, we could be talking but it’s really tough to break into about sales and business relationships, presenting in a gallery, and we wanted it’s the same thing. You’re right its about to be that opportunity for folks. relationships, but making it meaningful is important.

I know that at least three of our artists that we’ve shown were either And communicating that real thing. customers of the camera store or Yea, whatever that is and defining the through a chain of acquaintances of process.You know, the hardest part, I think, customers and/or people that we for artists is building that external person see regularly here. So it really is a that’s able to communicate to the rest of matter of networking and you know, the world what you’re doing. It’s one thing we are sitting here at the desk all day to have your art stand on its own, of course,

but, your art is an extension of you.

May 4, 2013

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JENNY VORWALLER jennyvorwaller.com In my abstract pieces, I’m seeking to find that viewers experience a departure from reality. It’s powerful to me that I can communicate so much using just color, texture and space for others to find a place to respond to their emotions.

SELECTED WORK

Into the Blue Jenny Vorwaller Mixed water based media on canvas 2012

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Infinite Goodness Liz Maxfield Oil on canvas 2010

FEATURE

liz maxfield

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liz maxfield Photo by Rob Maxfield

SM: How did you start painting?

LM: I actually did not start seriously painting until I had my first painting class at UW. I had always been more into drawing, having kept a sketchbook since I was eight years old. I preferred drawing in part because I believed it to be more accessible and painting seemed very daunting, like something that you would really need to have the time and talent to be able to do.

My first painting professor at UW made a huge impact on me. I had already been warmed up to thinking about art differently than I ever had in the past, by my prerequisite foundational art classes.

But my first painting prof took me from hesitating and over-thinking every move, to being confident in my ability to really see how lines, shapes and marks of paint come together to make a painting.

I learned that to paint was to see differently and so began my fascination with the fluidity and impermanence of paint.

Was there a particular reason why you chose to attend University of Washington’s School of Arts as opposed to other art schools?

I was very fortunate to attend such a great art school but it was not an intentional choice initially. I started my time at FEATURE

Liz Maxfield graduated University ofWashington in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in InterdisciplinaryVisual Arts, and a focus in painting. She has shown both locally and internationally, and continues to paint while working and raising three young children.To find out more information about her art, go to lizmaxfield.com.

UW as a French major and began taking art elective classes to fulfill my BA degree.

I loved my time in the art department so much that after my first year I switched my major to Interdisciplinary Visual Arts.

work and what I am doing. It’s such a thrill when one of my paintings really captures someone’s attention and they are really moved by a piece. Art is a form of communication and when I have communicated something special and What was the most important thing unique without using any words, it’s a you learned there? great feeling.

Art is conceptual and very subjective. One person may perceive and bring ideas and What do you hope viewers will thoughts to a piece or project that are see from your art? completely different than someone else’s I hope people will see glimmers of take on it. The beauty and awe in art is truth in my work. As I deal mostly with seeing and experiencing these differences landscapes or figures I want to reveal visually with other people. something in them that feels right, whole and speaks truth about humanity What do you think makes a good and life on earth. piece of art?

I love it when artwork is interesting and Most compelling subject matter? compelling to look at for any length of Why? time. I like it when I am moved and I’m not The most compelling subject matter quite sure why, when every piece or mark for me would be the human body. I is working so well together and it feels absolutely love drawing from a live perfectly whole, like nothing is missing or model and like to work gesturally to lacking. capture the true feeling and presence of the person rather than the exact and Who/what do you paint for? precise location of their bodily forms. To I really enjoy the whole process of painting me, getting a sense of another humans – from being in my studio to mixing paint presence through a drawing or painting and to applying it to canvas. Creating is a is more interesting than seeing the pose form of meditation for me, communion as it really was showcased. with the creator of creation, so ultimately I would like to think that I paint for Jesus. (continued on pages 22-23) I also paint for those who appreciate my

Anatomy of Melancholy Liz Maxfield Oil on canvas 2010

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Lakefield Liz Maxfield Charcoal and oil on panel board 2008

FEATURE

How did your “Field of Vision” concept arise?

Field of Vision started out with playful movements of applying charcoal and paint to canvas. I worked with charcoal directly on the canvas and pushed the depth of the drawing by adding and removing the charcoal over and over in a pretty methodical way. Once I had a form that I liked to work with, I fixed the charcoal to the canvas and then I added paint. I did not “fill in” the drawing with color, rather I continued to work with the back and forth movement of the interactions that developed and just pushed it further, not always covering the charcoal entirely.

Tips on getting your art into galleries?

My biggest tip would be to work behind the scenes before you pursue representation by a gallery. You can learn what it really takes to sell work by getting into an artist run co-op, where the artists share the work of showing, promoting and establishing a client base, whereas commercial galleries do that work for the artist in exchange for a larger commission. I think it’s a good idea for artists to really experience the work load of self promotion before they ask someone else to do it for them. I know it made me much more appreciative of what is involved in the whole process. I showed with La Familia Gallery for two years and got a chance to work with many different As this progressed and as I was working artists and learned tremendously from and was liking what was happening, I some that had been at it for a while. developed the idea even further with the idea of land forms and sky forms Another great way to get into a gallery is merging in space [see Lakefield]. This to intern in one that you are interested series of work is about creation. The in. I interned for about a year and half at interactions of earth and sky, what is Gallery 110 in Pioneer Square and it was seen and unseen, a look back into that a great way to meet the directors and see grand moment once in time by the first hand what they are looking for in creator of the universe as well as with artists to represent and to get a sense of my small reenactments of creation in my their vision and direction for the gallery. studio when I am creating.

That was a great opportunity for me to ask questions and get direction for my Could you describe your own career and work, as well as from the process? (either physical, mental, directors themselves that I had established emotional, etc.) relationships with.

I like to start with an idea (if working abstractly) or simple subject (if working May 27, 2013 from real life) and then try to be open to what will happen as charcoal/paint meets the paper/canvas. There is much trial and error that occurs, as I believe the artistic process is not an exact science. Conflict and doubt definitely occur as well, but it is a valuable part of the journey in finding that perfect combination of shapes, lines and color that can ultimately come together in an amazing way. Sometimes it’s tough to persevere until something special happens but when it does it is always well worth the wait and very rewarding.

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JUSTIN MATA justinmata.com I hope that my work provides an opportunity to look at something slowly and deliberately. Bryan Memorial Town Hall is based on a huge building in Connecticut, but the sculpture is small and distorted in comparison. The scale of the sculpture makes it easy to get up close to the piece and examine all the folds, bends and splatters of paint in a way that could not be done with a giant building.

Bryan Memorial Town Hall Justin Mata Xerox transfer on acrylic medium, black acrylic paint 2008

SELECTED WORK

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FEATURE

Paul Butzi

The Allen Theatre, 22 Paul Butzi Canon EOS 5d mk II 2011

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Paul Butzi Self-portrait courtesy of the artist

SM: How did you start photography?

PB: My dad gave me a camera when I was really little, because he was an amateur photographer and his dad, my grandfather, was an amateur photographer. My mother’s father was an amateur photographer with a dark room. So, I was pretty small. I must have been maybe six or seven when my dad gave me a camera.

I can remember wanting to take a photograph of a duck and the duck was pretty far away. My dad said, ‘The duck will be really small in the photograph’, and I took the picture anyway. Then we made a print and of course the duck was really an indistinguishable speck and I thought ‘Oh!’. I look at the duck and I don’t see all the stuff around it, and the camera does, so that was pretty interesting. That’s sort of the fundament of photography in a nutshell, the camera doesn’t see things the way you do.

My dad taught me how to develop film and how to make prints in the darkroom, the rest as they say is history.

I made photographs for the high school yearbook, and then after that, nothing.

I went off to college and that was it. I had no dark room, no money for film.

It wasn’t until 1985 when Emily was FEATURE

Paul Butzi, pictured with his dog Kodak, describes himself as an “avid amateur photographer”. Having had a show every year since 1996, Paul’s most recent project is The Ghost Light Project - which currently features eleven theatres from theWest Coast.To check out this and other portfolios, visit his website at butzi.net.

born. I thought, ‘Maybe I should make 120 film is really nice in a lot of ways photographs of my kids!’ So I got a camera and for a little kid it was ideal, because and I thought, ‘Oh, I remember this!’. it’s forgiving.You can make big mistakes on 120 film, the exposure. Because the It’s not actually a very uncommon meta enlargement factor is not so large. If story for photographers. They did it when you overdevelop the film a little bit or they were young, they went off to college, underexpose, or somehow you end up they stopped, and then they picked it up with a salvage job, it’s not head-banging again later. That’s a pretty common arc I histrionics. That’s what’s so nice about think.

4x5, it’s very forgiving. I’ve made nice prints from 4x5 negatives that look What was your first camera your completely unprintable. Like, ‘What Dad gave you then? happened to that? That’s terrible, how My first camera was a 120 roll film camera, am I going to print that?’ Then you go it was a Agfa Isolette, the rangefinder into the darkroom and it turns out to camera that folded up with the bellows. not be so bad, because the enlargement It was a great camera. I mean really nice factor is only 2 to 3 to 1, you can get camera, it had a great lens. I can’t believe away with murder. You overdevelop 35 my Dad gave me such a nice camera as a mm it’s going to be grainy, if its 4x5 seven year old kid, what in the world was then who cares. he thinking? Just crazy. It’s like you want your six year old kid to make photographs How would you describe your and you go buy him a Nikon. What in the photography? world was he thinking?

I’d describe it as: photography is a way of figuring things out.

Do you still like shooting 120 film?

Or are you more digital now?

How so?

I’m entirely digital now. I own film cameras I’m fascinated with how things are put but they’re sort of mementos than they are together and how they work and the working tools. So I have a really nice 4x5 process in a space. So if you’re out in view camera. I photographed with that a landscape, there is some process that exclusively for years and I just can’t bring shapes the landscape. If you’re on the myself to sell it. beach, the tide comes in and washes the beach, and sand moves around because

of the water, and the rain falls on it and makes streams. Those processes are really interesting to me, I don’t know why, they just are. But making photographs of the artifacts those processes generate is a really good way of learning about a place.

do I want?’ and they make a shot list and they go and make those photographs. And then that’s their project.

I am constitutionally incapable of working that way.

Instead, I will be going somewhere and I will make a photograph. It used to be I carried a camera around a lot of the time, so I would see something and I would go, ‘Oh, that’s interesting’ and I’ll go make the photograph. I don’t know what the photograph is about, I don’t know why I want to make a photograph of that, but I do. I go and I make these photographs, and they sort of pile up. These are the orphan photographs.You take them out and after a I’ve learned an incredible amount about while you start noticing patterns. how the architecture of the theater impacts the audience experience, how Like, I’m incapable of driving past a gate theaters are designed to get certain without making a photograph. Why is that? effects, how the facilities the theater I have no idea. has impacts the artists that are trying to make a production in that space. All of I still stop and make photographs of gates. those things are really interesting and So I have hundreds of photographs of gates, you can find the traces of all of those why is that? I have no idea. But, when I go questions, of all the little details in the and I look at those photographs, I can see photographs you make. You make one threads running through them. There is photograph and you look at it and you some fascination. think ‘Oh, that’s kinda cool’ and then the next time you’re in another theater There are the gate photographs and then and make another photograph that’s the there are the ‘No Trespassing’ signs photos. follow-on to that question. So that’s They’re kind of related. And then there are very interesting to me, and that means the fence photos. There’s something about things tend to be inexhaustible. space being separated into the part you can be in, and the part you can’t. So I’m also So that’s how you start on your fascinated by locked doors and windows, different projects, or that’s how where you can see inside but you can’t go they come about - because you’re there. There’s just something about that I trying to learn about them? find really interesting.

That’s sort of an interesting question because different people do projects So you look at those orphan photos, and different ways. There are people who you notice themes emerge. And in my do projects and say ‘I’m going to do experience, those turn into projects. So, a project on (and pick a subject), somewhere there’s a gate project. I have architecture of chairs!’. And they go and a lot of photos of gates, someday I’ll do research the architecture of chairs and something with that. I don’t know what. they study how chairs are made and they sit down and think, ‘What photographs The theater thing was different, it A good example is the theater stuff.

Where my friend, Bill, got access to the Paramount and he said ‘Why don’t you come photograph it, it will be fun’ and I said, ‘Yeah, sure, maybe it’ll be interesting, maybe it won’t.’ And we went and I really love theaters, and so making photographs of a theater is interesting because I learned a lot.

got started by Bill. He said, ‘Come photograph this theater’ and we went and photographed it and it was really interesting. We’ve gone back and done more theaters and more theaters and even more theaters. It’s kind of taken on a life of its own.

Could you explain the concept behind The Ghost Light Project?

If it was easy to say in words, you wouldn’t make the photographs, you would just say it in words.

It’s hard to say because Bill is doing one thing, and I’m doing something different in a parallel play. But for me again, you go into the theater and you make photographs.

There are two kinds of experiences in a theater. One is, you go and see a play and its a production and it’s all shiny, and the colors are bright, and it’s sort of bigger than life, and it’s dramatic and everything.

And when there’s no production in the theater it’s just an empty space.

The lights aren’t bright, there are all sorts of scuff marks on the floor that you wouldn’t see. They’re there when you’re seeing the play, but nobody sees them. The stage magic makes them all disappear. I’ll show you.

So here’s the Bowmer theater, a theater in Ashland. This is the house seats, you can see that you have the house lights on. You never see the theater look like this during a production. You wouldn’t come in and see the house lights, you wouldn’t have work lights on [see The Angus Bowmer Theatre, 29 on butzi. net].

The experience when you come into (continued on pages 31-35)

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Top: The Angus Bowmer Theatre, 23, Paul Butzi, Canon EOS 5d mk II, 2010 Bottom: The Angus Bowmer Theatre, 11, Paul Butzi, Canon EOS 5d mk II, 2010

FEATURE

the theater is very managed. The house lights are set to a low level, so you don’t know that the carpet’s dirty. The seats are sketchy. You can see the paint’s chipping off the floor, and this is a really nice theater, and there are scuff marks on the floor. There are these white lines on the steps, that’s glow tape so that the actors don’t stumble coming down the steps, but from the audience seats you never really notice the glow tape.

this is the house and it looks all nice and clean and pristine and everything, and then backstage and it’s kind of industrial.

Ordinarily, there’s a set that obscures all of that, but the actors backstage, that’s their experience of the play that they’re in, is that they’re walking around this stuff and it’s black paint and concrete. There’s pipes running over the surface, it’s not at all the world of the play that’s being presented.

And I just think that’s really interesting.

This is one of the photos where I learned It’s the different seeing of the camera, about the duality between backstage and the details that you don’t perceive are the house [see page 30]. Here you have this there. You see them anyway in the electrical stuff hanging there, just whatever photographs. stuff that happened to be useful as a hook, the electrical stuff is pretty beat up, the Here’s the booth [see page 30]. This is labels are just masking tape, but from the where the running crew calls the show other side you don’t see that. What you see from. You can kind of see it’s pretty is the glitzy play that is being produced. chaotic. The walls are black, the walls are cramped, the ceiling is not very There’s just something fascinating about high. And somebody’s decided to hang these two things existing side by side. One a stuffed animal. I don’t know why. of them is there all the time, the nonThat’s significant, this is a place where glamorous stuff is there all the time, but somebody does work that’s actually kind the audience never sees it, it’s not part of of difficult. So they’ve personalized the their experience, but the people making space, so they got frustrated one day and the play, the people that are actually making they hung this. it happen, this is actually what they’re experience is.

It’s not in this photo, but in this theater one of these monitors where they watch It’s really interesting to show the photos to the show on from a certain angle, there’s theater people who actually work in those a camera in the theater and they watch spaces. They have a very visceral reaction it on this monitor in the booth so they because they’re used to seeing people make can see stuff they wouldn’t normally photographs of theaters, and they make a get the line of sight for, but I remember picture of the house, and it looks really very distinctly, lined up in front of the amazing. That’s what people think when monitor were all these little animals like they think ‘theater’, and yet it’s really this you get in the box of tea bags as if they for them. were watching the show. Like they were the audience, it’s just very interesting to It’s kind of like what you were saying look at it. ‘Oh, this is where somebody about the gates, how you are not works, they’re making plays here, and allowed on the other side. this is the machinery they use to make Isn’t that interesting? That spaces are that happen.’ So that’s what it looks like separated that way. Maybe that’s my to the crew, except it would be full of fascination, maybe it’s that same separation bodies and a production on the stage. of space.

Notice the difference [see page 30],

Why did you guys decide to do it black and white?

The first theater we did was the Paramount, and we went in and they left all the lights on, and they didn’t tell us how to turn them on or off. So the lighting we saw was basically the lighting we got. Which was fine, they were very generous in giving us access, but it was this horrible mash of lighting sources. It was incandescent lights and fluorescent lights and halogen discharge lights, so the color balance was off. It wasn’t like you had to individually color balance each exposure, it was that different parts of the frame in one exposure, you would have to mask and color balance differently. We each had one-hundred fifty exposures and we were thinking, this is going to be a hard time trying to color balance them. Finally I thought, ‘What is like when I flatten it all to black and white.’ I did that, and I thought that it was much more interesting than the color.

The black and white just had a certain resonance for the space which I thought was really interesting. Black and white is interesting in the way it sort of abstracts things. Black and white is mostly patterns, and a lot of these photographs are pattern based. Here’s the fly system and there’s all these lines going up and down [see page 32]. In color it was a fine photograph, but in black and white it seemed far more interesting to me.

Bill independently came to the same conclusion as me. He e-mailed me at ten o’clock at night saying ‘So about the color balance, I just flattened them all to black and white, and man that seems the way to do it.’ I had already converted everything to black and white, and was about to send an e-mail saying ‘Try it in black and white, save yourself some

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The Angus Bowmer Theatre, 4, Paul Butzi, Canon EOS 5d mk II, 2010

FEATURE

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heartache’.

pretty straight forward.

That was the original impetus for doing it in black and white. As we got more experience, the color balance thing became less of an issue, but by then we were sort of in a black and white frame of mind and so we continued doing that.

What has been your favorite theater to shoot at?

The favorite theater to shoot is always going to be the next one we do. Of the ones we’ve done, which is what you’re really asking, I think probably the Allen in Seattle. Let me show you [see page 26].

Black and white has sort of an abstract quality. People look at them right up front and they know they’re not actually looking at the scene. It’s interesting because photographs are kind of an interesting concept, if you look at a photograph of say a tricycle, your brain says ‘tricycle’. If you take a photograph of a dog’s toy and show it to a dog, the dog thinks, ‘why is he so interested in this piece of paper? It’s just a boring piece of paper, what am I supposed to do with that?’. The dog doesn’t look at the piece of paper and say, ‘Oh, there’s my toy’. But people do, why is that?

It’s kind of a fascinating thing. A lot of people make photographs and never think about this. How can that be?

You know the story about Picasso. You know the portrait of this guy’s wife is commissioned. What does she look like, and he takes out the photograph and says, ‘Gosh! She’s small!’ because the photograph is like this and the person is big. There’s the thing that is referred to by the photograph, and then there’s the photograph, and they’re not the same thing. Black and white just widens that division. I like black and white.

I did black and white and nothing else for years and years and years. I didn’t do any color photography, except for vacation snapshots, until I got a digital camera. Because I couldn’t print color, I had taken classes in printing color, but I didn’t have the equipment. Printing color is just a whole nother level of head-banging, in the darkroom anyway.

Digitally with an inkjet printer, it’s FEATURE

The Allen is interesting because I had made the photographs, but not yet done anything with them - I was talking to the guy who was the artistic director of the theater, Kurt Beattie, we were actually standing in this theater and he said something along the lines of, ‘A theater is a machine for telling stories’.

And then I went home and looked at these photographs, look at this [see page 26], this is just an amazing theater, there is all this ventilation ductware everywhere. It looks like some kind of a steampunk time machine.

People just sit down and the machine goes kuchink kuchink kuchink, and like Doctor Who and all this stuff happens, and people are magically transported. Doesn’t it look like some Doctor Who device?

like thirty-forty seconds, because the lighting is pretty dim. But also, it’d be really hard to do without a tripod.

I’m used to setting up the camera, and looking at what I’ve got, and then moving the camera a little bit, changing the composition - looking at it, thinking about it. If you don’t have a tripod, what are you doing? You’re looking through the camera.

I’m not really good with SLR viewfinders because they are really small, and the world is really big. After using the 4x5 camera, it took me awhile to adjust to the idea that you didn’t see it upside down. That was pretty novel. So for all the theater stuff, neither Bill or I use the viewfinder. It’s all live view on the back screen of the camera. Bill has a monitor that he puts on the back of the camera and he looks at it through the live view of the monitor.

Your process sounds very methodical. Maybe it’s because you grew up with film cameras?

It’s certainly true that I know what’s going to be in the photograph before I was still thinking about Kurt talking about I even put the tripod down. That’s just it being a machine, and I thought, ‘That’s the view camera experience, where the really it’. camera is kind of bulky and heavy. So if you’re photographing somewhere, you A theater is really a machine. At its core, tend to put the camera down and wander it’s a machine built with a specific intent. I around and look, look, look. When you was thrilled that that machine quality came figure out there’s a photograph here, through so clearly in these photographs. you get the camera and you set it up, It’s like some Star Trek transporter thing. and you make a photograph, and then you knock it down. So it’s not like a That was one of the first times that I was Leica where you are carrying it around talking to some theater person and felt like in your hand. that there was some congruency between what I was finding in the photographs and I see people carrying it around, and the experience that they had working in they’re only looking through the the theater. So I felt pretty good about that. camera. They never take their eye away from the viewfinder, I don’t understand Did you use a tripod for all these that interaction with the world. They’re photos? looking at this edited view of the world Yea. A lot of the exposures are quite long, and every time this edited view looks

interesting, they push the button. As opposed to looking around and finding something in the world that is sort of visually interesting, and then you go and get the camera and you think, ‘How am I going to arrange this so that there’s actually an interesting photograph?’.

What is it about this scene that is interesting, and how can I make that be in a photograph? Sometimes it’s easy.

But here it’s backstage, there’s a scenic drop, there’s a ghost light, you can see the house lights are down, but you can still see that’s where the house is.You’re looking at it, and you think how can you arrange all these interesting things in one photograph? And you think that how you stand determines how it gets presented, and determines the relationships. And you walk around until it looks interesting, and then you set up the camera and take the photograph.

I’ve heard that photography is a way of problem-solving, you see something and you try and find a way to present that interestingly.

Yes, that’s exactly it. One of the interesting things about seats in the theater is the shapes and the cushions, the light falls on the cushions and they make these patterns. I can’t tell you how many photographs I have like that.

Every theater, I go into there is some photograph, where it’s just the rows of seats making these patterns, and mostly they’re really boring. [Laughs].

Every time you see that problem, you think ‘I’ve got to solve this problem now. I’ll go make a photograph. OK, I’m done with that, time to move on’.

The easy way to get past it is to walk into the theater and the first thing we get done is to get all the photos done that I know I’m going to get done anyway, get them all out of the way, get it out of my system, move on. That’s the way

you find the interesting stuff, is that you’re wandering around the theater making this photos that you know you’re gonna make because you’ve made them in every theater so far. I have a shot like this in every theater we’ve done [see The Columbia Theatre, 20 on butzi.net]. Some of them are interesting and some of them are really boring. You learn a lot about what other interesting photos are there by making that photo.

There’s a sort of a process, where one photo clues you in to what the other photos are.

Is it like a warm-up?

Yea, I do warm up now. I go and get the old photos and I flip through them really quick just to sort of have those patterns fresh in my mind. Maybe not what to look for, but I’m familiar with what I’ve done in the past. So I’m on some level where I’m aware of the patterns that I’ve seen before. But you only have three hours and you’re gone. Most of the time we don’t get a chance to come back, so we kind of want to get everything that’s there the first time around.

and said ‘Oh that’s awesome, I’m going to go do that.’

It’s a rather different motivation. That’s not a bad thing to do, it makes you feel good, makes something that’s nice.

You’re not making the world a nasty place. It’s a perfectly good pastime but it’s not what I’m doing at the same time.

They’d probably look at my photos and think, ‘What the heck is he about? I don’t get these photographs at all, I just don’t get it’.

If we’re going to say, what’s this about?

If you were to ask me, I would be hardpressed to tell you.

I did a show with a lot of these photographs in it [see the SDG portfolio on butzi.net] and it was curated, and the curator wrote up a little description what the work was about. She said something like, “Paul is interested in the boundary between managed and unmanaged landscape”. And I thought, ‘Okay, there’s a fence, there’s a field, it’s managed. There’s forest in the background, it’s unmanaged.’ Maybe Well I already know every time I’m going to that’s what it’s about, I thought, ‘Maybe see a gate, I’m going to make a photography that’s kind of perceptive’. of the gate.Why? Because I know that that’s a pattern I’m fascinated by and I’ll continue But that was not in my brain when I was to make those photographs until I figure making the photographs, I assure you – out what that’s about. just walking around and something rings your chimes, and you set up the camera.

So, would you describe, in general, that the importance of photography May 23, 2013 that? Trying to figure stuff out?

It’s not clear to me that’s why other people like to make photographs. I don’t see that as a motivation for most people.

If you go to Flickr and you browse through Flickr, what percentage of these photographs were made because somebody said, ‘I know, calla lilies, I want to figure out what’s going on with calla lilies’. And that’s not it. 99% of all the calla lilies photos on Flickr, somebody saw Mapplethorpe’s lilies

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Jaq Chartier jaqbox.com Each of my paintings begins as an actual “test” to explore some aspect of my materials – deeply saturated inks, stains and dyes which migrate and seep through creamy white paint films and layers of acrylic resin.

Inspired in part by scientific images of gel electrophoresis, the paintings feature intimate views of materials and document how they react to each other, to light, and to the passage of time.

Beautiful, but also sort of bizarre – inflamed, infectious-looking, suggestive of energies that we can’t see.

SELECTED WORK

Density Tests (11 Whites) Jaq Chartier Acrylic, stains and spray paint on wood panel 2011

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Untitled Alex King Stadium High School Silkscreen

EMERGING ARTISTS

EMERGING ARTISTS

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EMERGING ARTISTS

Oblivion Jacqueline Hom The Bear Creek School Digital photograph

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Untitled Vanessa Kent The Overlake School Ink

EMERGING ARTISTS

A Skull in the Darkness Zoha Syed Redmond High School Charcoal

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Reflections Julia List Ballard High School Black and white film photograph

EMERGING ARTISTS

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Portals Joy Twentyman Washington University Digital photograph New Delhi, India 2009

EMERGING ARTISTS

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contact the editor Morgan Cadigan morgan.cadigan@gmail.com morgancadigan.com