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April Issue 2005
Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC, Offers Two Group Exhibitions
The Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC, will offer two group exhibitions including: Salisbury Post -100 Years: Works by Salisbury Post Photographers, featuring nearly four dozen photographs by five current and former Salisbury Post photographers - James Barringer, who retired in January after 44 years with the Post; Joey Benton; Wayne Hinshaw, photo chief; Jon Lakey; and the late John Suther, who shot pictures for the paper before it hired its first full-time photographer. The exhibit will be on view in the Center's Woodson and Osborne Galleries. Memory and Place, featuring a collection of retrospections in diverse media by four South Carolina artists and Winthrop University professors - Shaun Cassidy, Seymour Simmons, Tom Stanley, and Alf Ward. This exhibit will be on view in the Center's Norvell Gallery. The exhibitions will both be on view from Apr. 1 through June 11, 2005.
Historical perspective and artistic talent will come together in the exhibit, Salisbury Post -100 Years: Works by Salisbury Post Photographers. The show celebrates 100 years of the Salisbury Post's reporting. "We are looking forward to sharing this collection of photographs with the community," says Elizabeth Cook, Post editor. She continues, "Our full-time photographers have captured a range of events and emotion on film, and their work is part of the fabric of Rowan County." Wayne Hinshaw, who joined the Post in 1971, has culled through thousands of photographs in order to narrow down the ones selected for this exhibition.
As a starting point, Hinshaw used a collection of photographs chosen for the paper's 250 Fest special section in 2003. Because of space constraints, many of those photos were not used in the section but are still of great historical significance, he says. Hinshaw notes that photographs were a rarity in the early history of the Post, mainly because the cost of engraving these images was prohibitive. The first engraved photograph, one of a car accident on South Fulton Street, ran in the Post in 1935. The photo is included in this exhibit. Unfortunately, Hinshaw was unable to place the first color photograph, shot by James Barringer, that ran in the paper in 1971, called, The Horse of a Different Color, by longtime press foreman Wade Fisher, because the reproduction was poor.
Hinshaw's main goal for the exhibit was to show photos of historical significance; yet many of these also have artistic beauty as well. Some of Hinshaw's and Barringer's black and white prints, made in a darkroom, will be on display. "I thought from an exhibit standpoint that it would be good to incorporate that," Hinshaw states. Some choices were obvious: President Eisenhower's visit to Salisbury, photographed by John Suther; the downtown fire of 1964, photographed by Barringer; and President George H.W. Bush's 1992 trip to Faith, photographed by Hinshaw.
More recent photographs, Hinshaw believes, will also be of future historical value: the 2001 funeral of U.S.S. Cole bombing victim Lakeina Francis, covered by Joey Benton; the 2002 drought, captured by Benton and Jon Lakey; and the Pillowtex closing, documented by Lakey. There are "smaller" events, as well: Salisbury's final soapbox derby shot by Hinshaw in 1972; photos of an African-American church in Bear Poplar, also taken by Hinshaw, in 1976. Although such events may seem to be of low significance when observed as part of the larger history of Salisbury, as Benton says, "I try to remember that even though I see an assignment as minor, to the subjects it is the most important thing to them on that day."
Hinshaw says of the exhibit, "These are slices out of timeJames, Joey, Jon, and I hope that the public will enjoy seeing it." Including Barringer, those who have served as Post photographers include Mike Clemmer, Bob Bailey, Bonnie Smith, Fred Wilson, Fred Barbour, Wes Miller, Bill Jackson, and Jayson Singe. The late Raymond "Junior" Austin served as longtime darkroom technician from 1971 until his retirement in 2002. Lakey joined the Post staff in 1998; Benton in 1999. Andy Mooney joined the staff in 2003 as a graphics designer, and photographer Devon Cooper came on board in mid-February 2005.
Artwork in a variety of media by four South Carolina artists - Shaun Cassidy, Seymour Simmons III, Tom Stanley, and Alf Ward - comprise Memory and Place, an exhibition which exemplifies the retrospective thoughts and reactions of these artists as they consider their experience of a particular time and place. The conceptual brief for the exhibition was intentionally open-ended and allowed each individual to seek and utilize any media they felt appropriate to portray the notable character of the chosen place.
Shaun Cassidy of Carshalton, England, has selected painted steel as the media through which he "investigates both memory of place and memory of experience." As Cassidy explains of his work, "Numerous forms and images derived from gestures of the body, from characteristics of specific landscapes, and from everyday objects are subverted or fused together into singular sculptural units. The subject of the work can be split into two areas. Firstly, ideas are derived from the shape, recognition, and collision of the forms that make up the sculptures. Secondly, the subject could be defined as the search for the juxtaposed referential or recognizable imagery within the seemingly abstract forms of the sculpture and the resulting narrative journey that takes place." Cassidy's steel sculptures require active mental participation from the viewer and provoke the audience into proactive reflection.
Seymour Simmons, who is currently on sabbatical in Paris, France, has completed the artwork displayed in this exhibition during his time away from Winthrop this semester. According to Simmons, Paris is his favorite city, offering two primary sources of inspiration for him: "First is the city itself: its public placesalso its more private places. The second source is the art in Paris, which is everywhere: sculptures and paintings in museums; architectural masterpieces on nearly every street; antiques and art treasures from all over the world in the shops and flea marketsand most importantly, old master drawings."
Although this exhibition is entitled Memory and Place, which implies past experiences, Simmons brings to his work a sense of the immediate, of not only the tangible objects in motion but also the intangible emotion he feels as he paints his subjects "to evoke in the viewer as much as possible the same qualities of experience that I get from being here, now."
Tom Stanley, former Executive Director of Waterworks Visual Arts Center, has applied a very different approach to completing his artwork exhibited in Memory and Place. He contends, "Irely upon a visual vocabulary of familiar objects and memories from over the past 30 years to fill the canvas. I use techniques that have evolved from high school drafting class as well as an interest in folk art." Stanley continues, "It is difficult to point to any one or two ideas that play an overriding role in the development of this work. If anything, this, like most of my work, exists as a free-floating visual narrative."
Alf Ward's artwork for this exhibition represents a more specific time in his life rather than a culmination of times and places. As his grandfather always told him, he was "born the night they bombed the margarine factory" in London during WWII. His work represents memories of growing up in a period of angst, surrounded by bomb explosions and the screeching of air-raids. Ward explains, "Each piece depicts a particular, usually tragic, event during those war years. We would spend most nights in our garden air-raid shelter. Beside our house were three large anti-aircraft guns and two search lights. So, we would be bouncing up and down in our little beds as the guns roared and thumped the ground above us and bombs fell nearby."
Ward continues, "My most
memorable recollections are depicted in these pieces. They are
often in semi-abstract format because my visual recall sees them
as flashing moments in time or vivid threatening shapes that still
give me goose-bumps today."
As the four artists explain, "Throughout our lives we are
shaped by formative experiences, memorable situations, distinctive
people, and meaningful places. Sometimes, although hardly
recognizable at the time, a highly significant combination of
these defining elements can collide in one town. As we proceed
in our journey it is inevitable that we mentally revisit such
influential locations in an attempt to more clearly understand
who we are today." Cassidy, Simmons, Stanley, Ward,
and Waterworks invite the public to share the memories these artists
have portrayed in their own unique ways, to share the experiences
- sometimes jovial and buoyant, sometimes heart-wrenching and
troublesome - had in places significant to them.
The All Rowan County Elementary Schools Exhibition is also currently featured in the Center's Young People's Gallery. It will remain on display through Apr. 23, 2005.
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Waterworks Visual Arts Center is funded by individual memberships, corporations and businesses, foundations, the City of Salisbury, Rowan County, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For further information check
our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at 704/636-1882
or at (www.waterworks.org).
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