CarrieDee

For those of you that don't know me, I work for Light Work & Community Darkrooms. I work on the Community Darkrooms side in the digital lab. I print on big printers, help maintain the digital lab, mentor, and assist members and visiting artists with their techniques, art, and skills. I also teach a one day class once a semester on everything inbetween the input and output process. It's fun. I love my job.

So, anyway, I already posted this in my Myspace blog, but I also can't forget this one.

Working at Light Work allows me to meet all kind of interesting artists. Throughout the year, Light Work invites about 15 artists to come take advantage of our facilities for a month. I had the privilage to work with and print for 2 photographers this month, Cristina Fraire & John Clark Mayden.


Cristina Fraire

Argentinean photographer Cristina Fraire will be using her time at Light Work to work with images from her The Austere Life, Shepherds at the End of the Millennium photographic essay. Fraire's images capture mountain shepherd communities that are isolated high in the Cordoba province—communities that do not use electricity or telephones, don't have roads, and depend on sheep as their single economic resource. According to the International Center for Photography, "In the barren and rocky terrain, the ancient connections between generations remained unchanged until urban ways were introduced by tourists and solar-powered televisions. Fraire's pictures reflect this blending of the ancient and new, but also assert the distinctive features of the shepherds' natural landscape." She will use her residency to evaluate the photographs, oral testimonies, and texts for printing and the potential creation of a book dummy.

Fraire's work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions internationally. She studied psychology at Universidad de Buenos Aires and fine arts at the Argentine Society for Fine Arts Artists, then went on to teach fine arts to children. When she discovered photography, she decided to quit teaching to dedicate her life to photography full-time.

***I couldn't find a website for her, but here's some samples of her work I found on the net... Cristina Fraire


John Clark Mayden

John Clark Mayden is dedicating his time at Light Work to printing his black-and-white images of city life in Baltimore, MD. Mayden's images capture, in his words, "the realities of black people living in low income cities." His work depicts the wide range of experiences found in inner city life, from good times and joy to drugs, misery, social injustice, and crime. Mayden feels that photographers are put in the unique position to record life as they see it, and that they should maintain the skills of documentation, composition, and printing so that future generations can see accurate pictures of life during a certain time, in a certain place. He has used photography his whole life to address social injustices, and has worked frequently with organizations whose mission is to serve low income communities, families, and children.

Mayden has worked in Baltimore's Law Department for twenty-six years. He obtained his BA from Ohio Wesleyan University and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore School of Law. His photographs have been exhibited nationwide, and are featured in permanent collections at Baltimore Museum of Art and Ohio Wesleyan University, among others.

***Unfortunately I couldn't find much on the web about his work. I'll post at a later time if I can find anything.


So, yea. I'll be posting about our visiting artists about once a month on top of my CarrieDee Handcrafted posts.

My faux suede and canvas mums tote was featured in an Etsy treasury the other day! Yay! Thanks DogsRus! Oh yea.. here's the link!