CARL AUSTIN HYATT
SALT/SEA/STONE
CARL AUSTIN HYATT
SALT/SEA/STONE May 1st - June 28th 2017
DIRECTORS FORWARD
SALT OF THE EARTH Carl Austin Hyatt made his home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, some decades ago, drawn to the same dramatic and rocky coastlines that have inspired generations of artists in New England. He was – and remains – inspired by the stones, the sky and the tides. It is not hard to imagine the sense of discovery that moved his imagination. The geographic features here can be described rather simply; rocky shorelines, weathered stone, churning seas and brilliant eastern skies. It’s the stuff of photographs. But the coastline itself has come to represent much more. Beyond where rocks meet water, it presents an uninterrupted and uncomplicated view of the horizon. It offers a clear line of sight to the joining of the heavens and the earth. We’ve been coming to terms with that relationship for millennia, asking both where we might come from and where we might be going.
and arithmetic to calculate precise exposures and saturation. Hyatt has mastered each with an artist’s devotion to fine print making, all evidenced by the rich tonality, composition and presentation that identify photographers of note. Hyatt’s images are striking works of art if you only see them for what they are; as pictures.
But the works represented here also identify Hyatt’s most ambitious artistic endeavor. Here, the artist invests his images with a host of contemporary concerns and advocates for a deeper communion with the subjects he pictures. Historically speaking, landscape photographs have always been complicated by politics and power. The federal government sponsored the first photographic land surveys while corporations exploited photography as an extension of power and domain, each staking a This catalogue is published on the occasion of political claim to what was broadly within sight of Carl Austin Hyatt’s solo exhibition at the Ogunquit the camera. In these images of salt piles, stones, Museum of American Art. The installation and and the sea, Hyatt is also concerned with power. the following pages present a selection of Hyatt’s But the artist rather places its logic elsewhere. recent and accomplished photographs. They With geologic processes on one side and were taken in and around New England on the humanity’s presence on the other, Hyatt touches coastal waterways of Maine and New Hampshire. on the delicate and often poetic relationships To make his pictures, Hyatt uses a large format between the two most powerful forces on earth. view camera, largely the same photographic As we stand on the shifting grounds of epochal equipment used by Carlton Watkins, Edward change – where human activity has now moved Weston and Ansel Adams. The process requires more earth than all natural forces combined – a great deal from the photographer. It takes the images presented here offer a respite for raw physical strength to transport and assemble contemplation and meditation on the changing the various tripods, box cameras, and plates. tides of the moment and the edge of existence. It begs a certain attention to detail, to properly align and focus the mechanics of the camera bellows, lenses and shutter mechanisms. It also demands an innate understanding of chemistry
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This exhibition of photography is organized by the Ogunquit Museum of American An artist’s life would not be so desirable Art. Several trustees for the museum and without the undying devotion and support of civic leaders in the community have given friends and family members; those that share assistance in preparing the installation. I and contribute in any artist’s creative vision want to thank Board President David Mallen and personal drive. There are people without for his unwavering support and leadership, as whom Hyatt’s life in photography would be well as Diana Joyner, whose generosity and very different. Carl has enjoyed a decades guidance benefits us greatly. The same can long friendship with Pauline Elkins, whose be said for the full board, who have each been support has been invaluable. Jamie LaFleur’s steadfast in their stewardship of the museum recognition and support of Carl’s projects and and its collections since its inception. Ruth the realization of his work is exceptional. Greene-McNally was crucial to proofreading Angie Lombard designed this publication. this copy, and OMAA’s resident artist Larry And of course Gabe Greenberg from Hayden installed the exhibit. Greenberg Editions in New York City lent his masterful expertise to the prints themselves. But perhaps the one most significant to his Michael P. Mansfield artistic life is Dr. Hillary S. Webb, Hyatt’s wife Executive Director | Chief Curator Ogunquit Museum of American Art and trusted confidant.
S-39 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
S-18 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
S-17 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
S-28 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
S-7 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
S-14 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
S-41 “Portsmouth Harbor Salt Pile Series”
SIGHT-SCAPE POEM BY DAVID HINTON
sea (light) scape dark (wave-light) dark salt (light) mountain Sight! That the world is inside us! All that space and light inside us! Sight, this mirror-deep opening where there is no difference between inside and outside, between mind and all the light-and-shadow distances of this world. sea (breath) scape sentinel-stone ink-streak cloud Experience defines us. It makes us what we are. Places wandered and people known, books read and ideas pursued, the events of our lives: it makes sense people are interested in experience. But through it all there is mirrored perception, opening all that space, conjuring a world inside us: sight and the empty mirror-deep mind that precedes definition. shadow breath-light sea-shimmer distances spindled mist-poles To look out with mirror-deep clarity—the Ch’an (Zen) Buddhists call it empty mind, which means mind without memory and ideas and thoughts, the stuff of identity. To look out that way is to experience no distinction between empty awareness and the expansive presence of existence. They are whole, a single existential tissue, which is to say that existence-tissue is our most fundamental self.
cloud-distances liquid light-swirl
sea (shadow) scape Looking, gazing deeply—it’s a form of meditation. And isn’t that what this world demands of us? Sight without concepts and theories, sight filling us with a world somehow resonating with its own presence, alive with breath and pulse, calling us to look deeper and deeper and without ourselves, to gaze as a mirror gazes. salt-light incandecence sentinel shadow-stone planetary sea-swell
明
Sun and moon, from oracle-bone images: and . Sun and moon: together they mean light, brilliance, and also enlightenment or wisdom. And it’s true, light understands things with perfect clarity: clarity brilliant everywhere, leaving nothing out, saying here, here along the edge of a continent, tracing snow-lit beach, dark-eaten poles, sea-shimmer distances, mist-deep islands. surf-pebble light-mountain horizon-dark 明, enlightenment or wisdom: and so, sight itself, that light-mirror, sight itself the most accurate understanding, the most comprehensive idea. If we trace understanding back toward that primal word-hoard predating the assumptions shaping Western thought, we find it means something like “to stand among,” and therefore to see (experience) closely, accurately, thoroughly. And we can trace idea back to the Greek idein and the Indo-European root weid, both meaning “to see” in the direct physical sense of seeing an object in the world: so, not an abstract concept, but the physical content of sight. And theory too, sharing its root with theater, originates in seeing: theoros, formed from thea (“a view”) + horos (“seeing”). cloud-light coast-dark rock salt shadow-grit
Ocean, stone, light: it’s magic, isn’t it, the way existence opens through eyes into awareness, filling us with its form and space? Magic the way there is no distinction between inside and outside, no I separate from everything else (though in describing it, our language insists on that separation)? Here in this mirror-deep gaze, there is this existence-tissue open to itself, miraculously and inexplicably aware of itself! Vast and deep, everything and everywhere—the sheer presence of materiality is open to itself through our eyes, aware of itself in a kind of beginning place. sea-pulse light-pulse pebble tide-wash pulse It is whole: empty awareness and this expansive presence of existence. It is a single tissue. And to dwell here in this beginning place, before all of the words and explanations, empty mind mirroring the ten thousand things with perfect clarity— that is complete and whole. It is to know existence open in its fullest dimensions, to feel all of that depth. Here, identity becomes whatever fills sight and mind, becomes the Cosmos gazing out at itself, seeing: salt (light) mountain dark (wave-light) dark sea(light)scape
David Hinton is a writer and translator living at the foot of Hunger Mountain in Vermont. He has been called “the best English language translator of classic Chinese poetry we have and have had for decades” by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In his most recent books, Hunger Mountain and Existence, Hinton focuses on the weave of consciousness and landscape, an exploration informed by insights acquired after decades of immersion in ancient Chinese culture. We are grateful to have his unique contribution to this exhibition catalog.
Standing Stone #1
Etched Rock Face
Poles At Lubec, ME
Standing Stone #3
Monument Cove, Acadia National Park
Salmon Falls River, #1
Evening Waves
Nocturne #1
Pulpit Rock
S-39 2015 11 “ x 14” Silver Contact Gold Toned
S-18 Printed 2015 50” x 60” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
S-17 Printed 2015 50” x 60” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
S-28 Printed 2015 50” x 60” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
S-7 Printed 2015 50 “ x 60” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
S-14 Printed 2015 50 “ x 60” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
S-41 2015 14 “ x 11” Archival Silver Toned in Gold
Standing Stone #1 1993 20 “ x 24” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Etched Rock Face 2014 40 “ x 30” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Poles at Lubec 1993 20 “ x 24”
Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Standing Stone #3 1994 20 “ x 24”
Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Monument Cove 1993 20 “ x 24”
Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Salmon Falls River Maine #1 2014 20 “ x 24” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Evening Waves 2008 20 “ x 24” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Nocturne #1 20106 20 “ x 24” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper
Pulpit Rock 1993 20 “ x 24” Archival Pigment Ink Print on Watercolor Paper