Lishui Photo - Sarah Hadley

I met Sarah in Portland at PhotoLucida this April. She had a beautiful, romantic and really gorgeous portfolio on Venice. Sarah is also one of the participants of the Lishui Festival. The organizing committee chose a different body of work, Water's Edge. Having spent my youth on a beach, and getting back to it as often as I can, I understand the power the ocean holds over us, the metaphors it can conjure and most often I have the overwhelming urge to plunge in and be surrounded in the silence. Sarah's images lead me to that moment. Her Black and white images showcase that fluid ever changing boundary beautifully.

about "The Water's Edge":

I grew up spending entire summer days by the ocean. These outings were always a special event and the beach was a place of wonderment, fascination and exploration for me. I loved the enormity and freedom the beach provided and the sense that we had entered a space where time was lost and the only rhythm was governed by the tides. As an adult, I have lived close to two great bodies of water--Lake Michigan and now the Pacific Ocean, and I've found myself drawn to beaches wherever I travel, especially when I can be alone in these vast panoramas. The complex and ever-changing landscape feels like stepping into an altered reality and I am interested in how the patterns in sand, sea and sky echo one another, as well as showing the transformative power of the elements. Capturing that point where water meets land feels like entering an infinity at the edge of the world.

New Directions 2010 Submissions due 15 November

Pardon the interruption, but I wanted to make sure ya'll knew this was the last week to get your submissions in for New Directions 2010 and in front of Carol McCusker of Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California.

Do Not Delay! Get 'em in soon.

Remember, the show hangs in Seattle and Portland in January and February, and will be showcased online as well.

I am so excited with the number of entries that have come in, as well as the quality of images! It will be tough for Ms. McCusker to make her choices.

Did I mention our Best of Show winner receives $100 credit from Blurb to produce a book? Who doesn't want that?

For more information about ND10 - Down + Out, log onto the website.

All of our submissions are considered for gallery representation to both wall space and 23 Sandy in Portland.

Some previous participants of ND now represented by the gallery - Joseph O. Holmes, Priya Kambli, Joelle Jensen, and Bill Vaccaro.

we look forward to your seeing your work.

Images shown Jennifer Schlessinger, Bill Vaccaro, Joelle Jensen and Joseph O. Holmes.

New Directions 2010 juried by Carol McCusker

Opportunity knocks here at wall space for our annual New Directions 2010 exhibition.

Our juror this year is Carol McCusker, of the Museum of Photographic Arts, in San Diego.

We are also excited to announce our collaboration with 23 Sandy Gallery to give the exhibition an additional showcase in fabulous Portland during the month of February 2010.

Here is the critical information -

New Directions 2010
Down & Out

in Seattle at wall space - 5 January - 31 January 2010
in Portland at 23 Sandy - 5 February - 27 February 2010

submissions open now until 15 November, 2009.
Artist notification - 15 December, 2009
Prints due to wall space - 4 January, 2010


Ms. McCusker's vision for Down & Out -

This call for entries privileges two points of view: looking down from a high vantage point, and looking out to a vanishing horizon. Art historian, Albert Boime, described the former as a "Magisterial Gaze" that gave early Americans, through painting and printmaking, a view at one with God, hence, Manifest Destiny. The latter may simply be the romance of the road, or curiosity about what lies just out of sight - an American impulse from early pioneers to Jack Kerouac.

Numerous painters and photographers have employed these vantage points, subsequently, they run the risk of cliché. When done well, however, each reveals the unexpected, as in Szarkowski's photograph above (he captures both in one image). The optimist in me delights at the disorienting perspective of looking down whereby familiar objects become abstract and dizzyingly beautiful, to looking out, with that forward motion promising adventure or escape.

The title Down & Out might conjure images of ne'er-do-wells (risky, if the public decides not to inquire further). What I hope the photographs provide, however, is pleasure in the variety of ways 'down' and 'out' can be imaged, and what emotional liberation such points-of-view can have on our often confined and overly responsible psyches.

About Ms. McCusker -

Carol McCusker is curator of photography at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in art history with an emphasis on the history of photography and film history at the University of New Mexico (UNM), Albuquerque. She has curated numerous exhibitions at MoPA and UNM, and is contributing author to Paul Outerbridge (Taschen, 1999); First Photographs: William Henry Fox Talbot and The Birth of Photography (powerHouse, 2002); James Fee: The Peleliu Project (Seraphin, 2002); Phil Stern: A Life's Work (powerHouse, 2003); Terry Falke: Observations in an Occupied Wilderness (Chronicle, 2006); and Breaking the Frame: Pioneering Women in Photojournalism (MoPA, 2006) The Roads Most Traveled: Migration Photographs by Don Bartletti (2006), Rebels & Revelers: Experimental Decades 1970s-1980s (2007), Public Privacy: Wendy Richmond's Surreptitious Cellphone (2007), and The Photographer's Eye (2008)

McCusker's freelance writing has been published in The Photo Review, Communication Arts, and she is a regular contributor to B&W and Color magazines. In recent years, McCusker has reviewed portfolios at Houston Fotofest, Review Santa Fe, Photo L.A., Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Photo Lucida, and in November, the Lishui Photo Festival, China. She was also a nominator for the 2009 ICP Infinity Awards, and a Juror for the 2008 Julia Dean Berenice Abbott Award.

for more information find the New Directions page on the gallery's website, or contact the wall space or 23 Sandy for details.

Jim Kazanjian

I really sympathize with everyone who blogs.
I personally can't keep up.
So many artists, so much information, and so little time.

This artist is one of those who stuck in my mind, but my fingertips can't keep up moments. Jim submitted to our New Directions show, and I loved the work. Last night I was down at 23 Sandy in Portland, celebrating our artist Loren Nelson's opening, and realized when I walked in the door, I had seen the other artist's work somewhere before, but couldn't place it.

I'll tell you what, the jpgs don't do the prints justice. The prints are gorgeous and rich.

Not to be missed. So if you are in Portland any time between now and the 30th of May, do not miss this show.

The work is smart, clever and really well meshed. His images are seamless, and you need to really dig deep, spend some time with them and keep coming back to enjoy them.