Littoral Zone
July 28th- August 25th, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 28th, 2018, 6-8p.m.
Artist Talk: Wednesday, August 1st, 7p.m.
Film Screening: Tuesday, August 7th, 7p.m.
Hera Gallery is proud to present Littoral Zone, a group photo exhibition featuring the work of artists: Alexandra Broches, Cynthia Farnell & Dan Powell, Kathie Florsheim, and Tina Tryforos. The exhibition will take place at Hera Gallery, at 10 High Street in Wakefield, RI, from July 28th through August 25th, 2018. The public is invited to attend the Opening Reception on Saturday, July 28th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The Gallery will also be holding an artist talk on Wednesday, August 1st, at 7p.m. On Tuesday, August 7th, Hera will be presenting the film screenings of two short videos by David H. Wells, "Trap Fishing" and "Quahogging on Narragansett Bay" and a selection of three interviews from "Fish Tales" by artists Dan Powell and Jay Lacouture.
The Littoral Zone makes up the costal shoreline of any body of water: sea, lake, or river. In these environments this zone expands from the highest recorded watermark, to the areas of shoreline that are permanently submerged. “In the United States, counties directly on the shoreline constitute less than 10 percent of the total land area (not including Alaska), but account for 39 percent of the total population. It is clear that a majority of us wants to live near the water”*…quotes artist Kathie Florsheim.
“The littoral zone is a space of rich natural and cultural life, the location where most human interaction with the sea takes place,” says artist Tina Tryforos, “We go there for work, leisure, commerce, and direct experiences with nature - drawn to its richness and ever-shifting borders. The five artists in this show consider a few different coastal communities that have formed around the ocean’s littoral zone. Within the time these photographs were created, we are more and more aware of the specter of global sea rise at our shores.”
*As per the National Ocean Service webpage
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/population.html
BROCHES
Black Sand Beach, Kalapana, Hawai’i
I have been photographing in Hawaii since my first visit in 1986. I had not expected the beauty and the variety of landscapes I encounter. I first visited Kaimu Beach Park, also known as Black Sand Beach Park in 1986 and have been fortunate to have visited several times over the years. Our most recent visit was this past January.
In 1983 eruptions from the Kilauea volcano began to affect this part of the southeastern coast of the Island of Hawaii, including the coastal area that lies within Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. Lava first reached the ocean in 1986 after destroying some houses in Royal Gardens subdivision and the coastal community of Kapa’ahu. The flow crossed the road and into the sea; one can no longer enter the park on the Chain of Craters Road, Route 130, the main road from Kalapana to Pahoa to the north. In 1990 lava flowed into Kalapana itself burying the community of 100 homes, a church, a store and the beach park under 50 to 80 feet of lava filling Kaimu Bay and profoundly altering the landscape, adding acres of new land.
It has been fascinating to note the changes brought to this new land after the inundation of the lava flow that overran the beach, to notice the first plants to take hold on the lava “extension”. Residents and visitors plant sprouted coconuts to reestablish the coconut palm groves along Kaimu Bay that were a characteristic feature of the beach and the community. Individuals have created memorials, messages and works of art. Just before the lava made its way to the sea the Star of the Sea Painted Church was moved further inland on Route 130 and restored. Built by Father Evarist Gielen a Belgian Catholic Missionary priest in 1927-1928 it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The store was rebuilt. A Farmer’s Market takes place at Uncle Awa’s Club and occasionally concerts are held on the open space of the lava. New houses have been built on the lava in other parts of the community.
Planned a year ago, this series is especially relevent at this time as Kilauea’s Pu’u ‘0’o crater continues to erupt since early May with lava flowing through neighborhoods and agricultural land into the sea destroying homes and creating new land. “Pele has demanded her land back.”
FARNELL & POWELL
Arcadia is an ongoing series of color pinhole images of the landscapes and inhabitants of temporary summer communities that coalesce seasonally on the East Coast. From the informal clutter of cottage enclaves in Narragansett, Rhode Island to cast net fishermen in Murrell’s Inlet, South Carolina, Arcadia is a lyrical response to these unique groups and how they visually manifest themselves in the landscape. The set of photographs in the Littoral Zone exhibition at Hera Gallery primarily features scenes from Rhode Island.
How people of similar interests come together to make a community, how it is maintained, and how it changes over time is the focus of Arcadia. The series is concerned with the idyllic, ephemeral and fundamental interactions between people and the landscape. In southern New England these communal activities are rooted in the cultural history of the region. They are faint visual echoes of the Transcendentalist movement, the writings of Emerson and Thoreau, nineteenth century landscape painting and the aesthetics of the sublime.
Farnell & Powell is the collaborative name of artists Cynthia Farnell and Dan Powell. They dedicate this series to their friend, photographer Dina Hall, who lent them her pinhole camera in the summer of 2010. Hall was the spark that started this series.
FLORSHEIM
I would roam our coastline everyday of my life, if I could. Rain or shine, summer or not. That narrow strip where land and water meet occupies my thoughts and gives me great pleasure. Conversely, it also haunts my waking dreams.
“In the United States, counties directly on the shoreline constitute less than 10 percent of the total land area (not including Alaska), but account for 39 percent of the total population. It is clear that a majority of us wants to live near the water. ”*
It may be our heart’s desire to live on that narrow fringe, but such longing translates to overdevelopment of that precious morsel of land. The build-out concurrently compromises our waterfront environment because it is on a collision course with increasingly frequent and violent storms that plague our coastlines.
This conflict has delivered a wrenching story of land use, one in which parking lots situated along the shore both obstruct our view and enable the first flush** to drain pollutants into the adjacent body of water; one in which concrete and fiberglass statutes situated on local wharves depict whales we long ago fished out; one in which residences of large and small dimensions occupy flood plains. All of this poses a familiar question: How did this happen? This conundrum claws at my sanity, both from a human and photographic perspective.
My strategy for dealing with these issues is to make subversively beautiful images of this landscape, with a series of photographs called On the Edge. “I use a beautiful melody to tell an ugly story,” to paraphrase Tom Waits. I focus on ordinary sights we might overlook because they are so familiar we do not really see them. We are rendered blind by their regularity. The fact that they are mundane, and have become by default, acceptable, is a painful comment on what we find allowable, and how little respect we have for our landscape in general and our coastline, in particular. Framing them, photographically, so that these little scenes are isolated, literally eliminates the surrounding area. They have a different presence because their context is stripped away. This approach allows for another, more critical way to see the landscape.
These images express my concern: they make a record of what is happening; bear witness to how it evolves. My best wish, and my intention, is to provoke debate, with hope that public discourse can influence public policy about coastal land management.
* As per the National Ocean Service webpage, found at http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/population.html
** Whatever substances, from grease, oil, toxic chemicals, garbage to dog droppings, are washed into the adjacent water during a rainstorm or snow melt. Hence, the first flush. This source of contamination is also called nonpoint source pollution.
TRYFOROS
White Village is like home — without the frills. It is a pop-up village that transforms weekly, inhabited by people who aren’t usually your neighbors. It is a place that has been my home for fifteen years, years that are counted out by the same week each August.
White Village is a family vacation from the 1960s, except for the WiFi.
White Village is on the edge of a continent, on a spit of land that is always in transition.
White Village is a dream of a simple life lived by the sea.
White Village records the passing of time. These pictures document a temporary, transitional, coastal community on Cape Cod; a gathering of friends and strangers; a meeting of the sky and bay. These photographs bear witness to perpetual change — from the movements of the tide and the shifting coastline and winds, to children who grow into adults as their youthful parents turn into middle-aged ones — all measured out against a sky that fluctuates from sun to storm to sun.
"White Village" is no more — its name erased by new owners last year.
And yet it continues, reliably the same and ever, always changing.
FISH TALES
Fish Tales is an ongoing series of conversations with Rhode Island surfcasters. These stories share the deep local culture of surfcasting for striped bass in southern RI. They are witness to the various issues that arise in a lifetime of fishing the rocks off Newport and the beaches of South County.
Three surfcasters speak to their experiences of time on the water. Del Berber, aka “Plug Man” shares the craft of turning wooden plugs, Don Morris recalls early actions in the ongoing fight for beach access and Larry Clay aka “The Landlord” recalls a life centered around sport fishing along the shores of Southern Rhode Island.
Producers Dan Powell and Jay Lacouture recorded these talks over a period of three years starting in 2005. In addition to collecting video stories and tales, Powell teaches drawing and Foundation classes at Georgia State University, Perimeter. Ceramic artist, and avid surfcaster Jay Lacouture, Professor Emeritus, taught ceramics at Salve Regina University.
“Fish Tales” was made made possible by a grant from the RI Council for the Humanities.
WELLS
FILMS: Trap Fishing" and "Quahogging on Narragansett Bay"
David H. Wells is a freelance documentary photographer, videographer and photo-educator, based in Providence, Rhode Island. Trap Fishing and Quahogging on Narragansett Bay tell the story of the lives of two families who continue to fish and their thoughts about the future of the industry. The videos were official selections for the SENE, Southeast New England Film, Music and Arts Festival in 2018 and 2017 respectively and have been shown at other festivals as well. They were originally produced on assignment for EdibleRhody magazine and ediblerhody.com. Wells has received numerous, awards, grants and fellowships in support of his work, including a Rhode Island Council on the Arts 2017 Project Grant, and a Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, mini grant in 2017.