Two former students of the late Professor Gay Burke’s have extended her legacy of photography education to the next generation. Andy Meadows (MFA 1994) founded the Booker T. Washington Magnet School Photography program in 1995 at the then Carver Creative and Performing Arts School in Montgomery. Meadows now works as Arts Education Specialist for the Alabama State Department of Education where he distributes grants to schools and works to improve arts education in Alabama. Starting out with the unheard of budget of $20,000, Meadows outfitted a darkroom equal to many college-level darkrooms of the time. Since then, hundreds of students at “BTW” have learned the art and technology of film and digital photography, as well as what Meadows thought was just as important: how to run a photography business. Since 2009, Emily Thomas — first a student of Meadows at BTW and then a BFA major in photography (2004) under Gay Burke — has led BTW’s program. Over the years, photo students at BTW have won national, regional, state and local awards and recognition, including National Scholastic Art and Writing Gold Key Portfolio awards, National Scholastic Art Award’s American Visionary Awards and an Alabama State Council on the Arts Visual Arts Achievement Statewide Exhibition, among others. In August, a devastating fire at BTW destroyed most of their photo equipment. Thomas is now teaching photography from BTW’s temporary facility at Hayneville Road Elementary School. Meadows said that among the losses were $250,000 worth of, in some cases, irreplaceable darkroom equipment, cameras and photo supplies that he and Thomas collected over two decades. Fortunately, the students aren’t starting back to school with nothing. Most of their digital work was stored in “the cloud,” and some film photos had been digitized and backed-up. And, the students have a strong legacy of skilled art instruction as one of their top resources. When the students visited UA in October, en route to exhibiting their photos at the Kentuck Festival of the Arts, they were upbeat about the future. Thomas said that she wants to pass on what she learned from her photo professor — the courage to try out new approaches. Maybe that’s just the thing to help them get back on their feet: “Gay taught me that experimentation is part of making art. Sometimes it results in a success, sometimes it results in a complete failure, but you never know until you try.” [fall18] If you would like to contribute to Booker T. Washington Magnet High School’s fund, monetary donations can be made to the FAME Foundation with the designation, “BTW Photography Magnet”: https://www.btwfameboard.org. And, they have an Amazon Wish list of equipment they need: https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/2ISQHK4RJ2QY4/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_awwl_s_qvygCbT8XR0NN
Gay Burke Memorial Fellowship in Photographic Arts
The Alabama State Council on the Arts announces the creation of the Gay Burke Memorial Fellowship in Photographic Arts for individual artists living in Alabama. Applications are open January 2 through March 1, 2019. Apply online at http://www.arts.alabama.gov/grants/howtoapply.aspx. Over four decades, photographer and professor of art Gay Burke developed a distinguished art photography program in The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History, all the while creating her own artwork. Burke died May 1, 2017 after inspiring generations of photographers, artists and educators. Through a generous gift, the Gay Burke Memorial Fellowship in Photographic Arts was established in 2018 to provide Fellowships to Alabama photographers to advance their artistic careers. Applications will be accepted between January 2, 2019 - March 1, 2019. The selected artists will be announced in June 2019 with their fellowship period effective October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020. $5,000 cash awards are made to individual artists in the photographic arts based on merit of work, career achievement, career potential and service to the state. This fellowship provides awards to recognize artistic excellence as well as professional commitment and maturity and contributes to the further development of the artist and the advancement of his or her professional career. Fellowships are competitive. Quality of work and professionalism as determined by samples of work and narrative are particularly important. Provide samples of the highest quality work completed within the last five years. Eligibility: All Fellowship applicants must be legal residents of Alabama for a minimum of two years prior to the application deadline, and are expected to maintain residency during the grant award year (Oct. 1 -Sept. 30). Artists who have previously been awarded any ASCA Fellowship are eligible to apply for a second Fellowship six years after their first Fellowship. After an artist has received two Fellowships, they are no longer eligible to apply. For more information about all the Fellowships offered by the Alabama State Council on the Arts, go to http://www.arts.alabama.gov/grants/howtoapply.aspx. To read more about Professor Gay Burke, go here: https://art.ua.edu/tag/gay-burke/ Download the flyer.
UA Faculty Finalist for National Photography Award
Associate Professor Christopher Jordan has been named one of ten finalists for the 2018 Clarence John Laughlin Award for photography. Jordan entered a portfolio of images, which included the photograph here, titled "Bad Dog." The Clarence John Laughlin Award was created to support the work of photographers who use the medium as a means of creative expression. It honors the life and work of Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1985), a New Orleans photographer best known for his surrealist images of the American South. The Award grants one $5000 prize annually to a photographer whose work exhibits sustained artistic excellence and creative vision. This year’s juror is Marcela Correa, Executive Director of the Arts District of New Orleans. Jordan explains his method of image-making: "I start by creating a 20”x30” tabletop diorama from photographs, cut paper and vellum. These dioramas are then lit in the studio and re-photographed. Through the play of light on vellum, I create the atmospheric effects. Through the interplay of physical materials, light and implied narrative, this work explores the ambiguity between photographic realism and pictorialism, and the ordinary versus the uncanny." For more information about UA’s Department of Art and Art History’s degree programs, go to this page: https://art.ua.edu/academics/
UA Alumna’s Work at Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Photographs by Celestia “Cookie” Morgan (MFA 2017, photography) are included in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s current exhibition “New Southern Photography,” curated by Richard McCabe up through March 2019. The show was written about in the New York Times‘ “Lens” blog and featured one of Morgan’s photographs. Morgan’s work was also featured in the 2017 exhibition, Contemporary Alabama Photography, at the Mobile Museum of Art, also curated by McCabe, who is curator of photography at the Ogden. Images from Morgan’s MA exhibition, Passage, were chosen by McCabe to be in the Mobile show. Read more about Morgan's previous exhibitions here… For more information about UA’s Department of Art and Art History’s degree programs, go to this page: https://art.ua.edu/academics/
BFA Exhibitions: Caroline Japal and Candace von Hoffman
The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present two Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibitions, November 19-29, 2018. Youth Expressions by Caroline Japal, and Sensory Notions by Candace von Hoffman, will be held in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. The public is invited to a reception for the artists in the gallery Tuesday, Nov. 20, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. In her exhibition, Youth Expressions, CAROLINE JAPAL focuses on portraits of young people and their experience of coming of age in Birmingham, a small Southern city, something that Japal realized had never been done before. "In researching this," she said, "I found only photo projects that focused on youth culture in larger cities and none in small cities like Birmingham, or in the South." Japal's photos of young people feel personal because the artist actively engages with her subjects while she takes pictures. "I meet with them in a public place, like Railroad Park or UAB campus, and we walk around talking while I photograph them." She says she catches "the in-between moments" when her subjects are open and unself-conscious. "I think viewers will be able to relate to them whether they know my photographic subjects or not." Birmingham native Caroline Japal is a creative director at Belladonna magazine, the first fashion magazine founded in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Art Concept Magazine and owner of Caroline Japal Photography. Japal was recently featured in Freelancer Magazine: http://frlmag.com/meet-woman-on-the-rise-birmingham-based-photographer-caroline-japal/. She has exhibited her work in UA's 2018 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition and in the Loft Show in Birmingham, and TheMix Birmingham Showcase. Japal is the recipient of the Carol B. Merkle Endowed Scholarship in 2017 and the Windgate Charitable Foundation Endowed Studio Arts Scholarship in 2016. Her website is https://www.carolinejapal.com/. Throughout her college career, CANDACE VON HOFFMAN has experimented with the overlapping the media of painting and photography. The body of work in her exhibit, Sensory Notions, von Hoffman said, "is guided by the idea that our bodies are in constant conversation with our surroundings. I am curious about exploring the relationship between the body, the human sense, and the fragility of perception. What does it mean to inhabit the body and how do our bodies direct our perception of reality?" Alabama native Candace von Hoffman has exhibited her work in UA's 2018 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition at Harrison Galleries; in a four-woman show, Canorous, in 2018 and in the 2016 and 2017 Open Media exhibitions in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. She is the recipient of the Farley Moody Galbraith Endowed Scholarship in 2018 and the Julie Peake Holaday Memorial Endowed Scholarship in 2017. Image credits: (top) Caroline Japal, Ana, 2018, photographic print, 30” H x 20” W. (bottom) Candace von Hoffman, Untitled Study 4/16, September 2018, multimedia collage, 4 x 4 inches. Both images courtesy of the artists. The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art at UA. For more information about the BFA degree and our other degree programs in the Department of Art and Art History, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/babfa-in-studio-art/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967. Woods Hall is a five-minute walk from the Campus Drive Parking Deck and Bus Hub on Hackberry Lane. Gold 1, Crimson, Blue and Bronze CrimsonRide buses stop between Garland Hall and Gorgas Library. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. For more information contact Rachel Dobson, communications specialist, at (205) 348-1893 or rachel.dobson@ua.edu.
Acclaimed Photographer Memorialized in Exhibit
The Mother of Alabama Art Photography: Gay A. Burke Exhibition: October 5 – 26, 2018 Opening reception and reunion: October 5, 2018, 5:00-8:00 p.m. (First Friday) The Arts Council Gallery, Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, Alabama In many ways, Gay Burke is responsible for bringing art photography to Alabama and raising the profile of photography as an art form throughout the South. She is the “Mother of Alabama Art Photography.” –Wayne Sides, photographer and author Over four decades, photographer and professor of art Gay Burke developed a distinguished fine art photography program at The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History, all the while creating her own photographic work. Out of this program came award-winning artists such as Miller Mobley, Janice Hathaway, Wayne Sides, Karen Graffeo, and many others. Burke’s innovative work has been exhibited in more than 80 national exhibitions including numerous solo exhibitions at venues such as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; the University of California, Berkeley and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Burke studied under distinguished photographer and photomontage innovator Jerry Uelsmann at the University of Florida and worked with renowned documentary photographer Walker Evans. At UA, she was the first woman to achieve full professor status in the Department of Art and Art History. She died in May of 2017. This semi-retrospective exhibition showcases forty works by Gay Burke, some never shown before. Most of the photographs are multi-negative prints. To create them, Burke shot 35mm film photographs, developed the negatives in her darkroom, and then painstakingly combined two, three or four negative images in the darkroom to produce a new image. These photographs, with their often surreal juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated objects, are a result of careful and skillful manual manipulation, long before the days of "photoshopping." None have been digitally manipulated. Please join us on opening night, Friday October 5, 2018, for a celebration of Gay Burke and a reunion of her former students from 5:00-8:00 p.m. An exhibition of photos by some of her former students, Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke, will be held at the same time in The University of Alabama Gallery, also in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, sponsored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. A one-time pop-up sale featuring hundreds of Gay Burke’s prints will immediately follow the opening reception, also in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center. All proceeds from the sale of these photos will go to fund the annual Gay Burke Memorial Fellowship in Photographic Arts, administered by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The Arts Council Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m. on weekdays and noon-8 p.m. on First Fridays. The University of Alabama Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and noon-8 p.m. on First Fridays. Galleries are closed on weekends. Admission is free. The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in Downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about the CAC, The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should LIKE the Facebook page “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” and follow tuscarts on Twitter. Call 205-758-5195 or visit tuscarts.org for further information.
Photography Students of Gay Burke Honor Her Legacy
Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke October 5-26, 2018 Reception: Friday, October 5, 5–8 p.m. The exhibition Butterfly Effect: Honoring the Legacy of Gay Burke features the work of more than 20 artists who studied under Professor Gay Burke over the course of Burke's 42-year career teaching photography in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Alabama. Burke passed away in 2017. An opening reception will be held on First Friday, October 5, 5:30-8:00 p.m. The opening will be a homecoming and reunion for Gay Burke’s students and colleagues. Former students Elliot Knight and Andy Meadows identified twelve former students of Gay Burke's spanning the years from 1973 until Gay’s retirement in 2015. Each artist was asked to invite at least two additional photographers to participate. The exhibition will feature work that the artists created during their college years learning from Gay, as well as work they created more recently. The exhibitors include Sarah Ann Austin, Barbara Lee Black, Wanrudee Buranakorn, Breanna Conley, Kathleen Fetters, Jenny Fine, Karen Graffeo, Johnny Goodwin, Ad Kanyalak, Elliot A. Knight, Jim Lockhart, Kristen Mance, Kathryn Joy Mayo, Andy Meadows, Sarah Cusimano Miles, Michael E. Palmer, Ben Rigsby, Laura Shill, Wayne Sides, Emily Thomas, Terrell Taylor and Jerri Wilson. The exhibition will run in conjunction with Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, an exhibition of 40 works by Gay Burke in The Arts Council Gallery, Oct. 5-26. The University of Alabama Gallery is located at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, 620 Greensboro Avenue, Tuscaloosa, AL. Hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1 – 4 p.m. on weekdays and noon – 8 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.
Two Exhibitions In Memory of Professor Gay Burke
Over four decades, photographer and professor of art Gay Burke developed a distinguished art photography program in The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History, all the while creating her own artwork. Burke died May 1, 2017. For the month of October, two exhibitions, of Burke's work and the work of her students, will be on display in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa. A semi-retrospective exhibition, Gay Burke: The Mother of Alabama Art Photography, will be on display in The Arts Council Gallery. The Alabama State Council on the Arts is assisting with the curation and exhibition of Burke’s former students' works, Butterfly Effect, which will be held in The University of Alabama Gallery. An opening reception for both exhibitions will be held on First Friday, October 5, 5:30-8:00 p.m. The opening will be a homecoming and reunion for Gay Burke's students and colleagues. More details about both exhibitions will be forthcoming.
Photo Shoot Night at the Museum
Students in Associate Professor of Photography Christopher Jordan's intermediate and advanced photo classes (ART 318 and 418) have been staging production photographs around UA campus for the past several semesters. Below is an example of one that was produced in the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Smith Hall. The image is made in a “directorial mode,” similar to the style of contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson, in which a fictional reality is established. In this image, a lone character resembling Indiana Jones "camps out" inside the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The “nighttime” lighting as well as the fact that an explorer sits in front of a fake fire inside a museum instead of out in the wild, lends a surreal atmosphere to the scene. Find out about the other "fictional reality" photo shoots students staged at the Gorgas House, on Woods Quad and at the ‘little round house’ (officially known as the Guard House, built in 1862).