Lyric Southern Gothic from Photographer Sally Mann

There have always been two loves in my life, and while sometimes I favor one over the other, it’s never been clear to me which one I should commit to: art or literature. I have at various times been a painter/diarist; journalist/photographer; gallery director/blogger. The truth is that this love triangle can work -- but rarely as remarkably as in renowned photographer Sally Mann’s recent book  Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs.

In the prologue to Hold Still we find the author in the attic of her family home in rural Rockbridge County, Virginia about to cut the twine on the first of many dusty cartons of family memorabilia:

“I secretly hoped I’d find a payload of southern gothic: deceit and scandal, alcoholism domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land, abandonments, blow jobs, suicides, hidden addictions, the tragically early death of a beautiful bride, racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder. . . And I did: all of it and more.”

What follows is Mann’s personal history from childhood through her life as a wife and mother of three, her development as an artist and emergence as a nationally recognized photographer; as well as histories of the extended family around her. 

RSM SM wedding pic.JPG

Credit: Robert S. Munger, Sally’s father

An outtake from the wedding portraits taken by Sally’s father with his beloved Great Dane Tara in the background.
From Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

The thread that runs deeply throughout Hold Still is Mann’s love of and reverence for place. The Blue Ridge Mountains, the Shenandoah Valley, the family farm and the river that runs through it, create the backdrop for her best-known photographs, those of her children.

Sally Mann, Gorjus, 1989, from Immediate Family by Sally Mann (Aperture, 2014)

Mann finds herself longing for home when she is sent away to school in Vermont:

“Through it all, trying to sort out a whole new life, I ached for home. I missed the embrace of the gentle, ancient Blue Ridge and the easy sufferance of the gracious Shenandoah Valley. I missed Virginia, where sentimentality was not a character flaw, where the elegiac, mournful mood of the magnolia twilight quickened my poetry with a passion that, even read in the hot light of the next day, was forgiven, where the kindness of strangers was expected and not just a literary trope, where memory and romance were the coin of the realm.”

We follow Mann through college, marriage and the birth of her children. We experience the excitement of her first proof sheet, her teacher’s praise and the excited letter she writes to her parents about it. We see her emerge as a critically acclaimed artist.

Rushing_1.JPG

Credit: Kim Rushing

Sally working on her “Deep South” series in Mississippi in the late 1990s.
From Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

We experience her pain and frustration on being labeled controversial on the national stage because of the decidedly non-prurient nude photos of her children in her book Immediate Family. We learn for the first time of a stalker who was “in love” with the children because of the photos and the toll it took on the entire family.

Mann analyzes a series of eight photographs showing the slow progression from idea to masterpiece: involving day after day of waiting for the perfect light, hauling a huge 8x10 camera and heavy tripod over slippery rocks  into the river, her son Emmet patiently posing in the cold river, until finally, on the eighth day she gets the perfect shot.

Sally Mann, Night-blooming Cereus, 1988, from Immediate Family by Sally Mann (Aperture, 2014)

We follow her as she roughs it through the deep south in her “mobile studio,” a Suburban fitted with a make-shift darkroom, stopping overnight in campgrounds or relying on the kindness of strangers for shelter.

Swamp Bones, Deep South, DS, pa 69.JPG; Credit: Sally Mann

The photo was included in Sally’s photo book “Deep South.”
From Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

The entire volume is richly illustrated with Mann’s photography, family photos, letters and documents. The result is a perfect hybrid of illuminating, page-turning prose with a wealth of visuals -- either of which could stand on its own.

Click here to purchase from Amazon.com

Click here to purchase the Kindle version

I Hallucinate. Dr. Oliver Sacks Comes to the Rescue

After making a double latte one chilly morning, I hurried back under the covers to warm up and flipped on the TV. As I lay there watching the news and sipping my coffee I noticed a vivid, pulsating, black and white zig-zag pattern projected on the dark wall behind the TV. Fascination quickly turned to panic when I moved my head to look at it, and it moved with me! This light show was in my head and it was growing into a long arc on the left side of my field of vision. I closed my eyes to make it go away, but there it was, even more vivid against a black background. Was I having a stroke? A seizure? Did I have a brain tumor?

Somehow the phrase “classic zigzag pattern” bubbled up through my panic and I raced to the bookcase to find my copy of Oliver Sacks’ Migraine. Was this the classic zigzag pattern of a migraine, the elusive “aura” that I complained about never having experienced through a lifetime of debilitating migraines?

I nervously thumbed through the book until I found the section of renderings depicting visions similar to mine with the caption “A classical zigzag fortification pattern . . ." My relief was short-lived as I was, however, having great difficulty reading. This was the result, I later learned, of a blind spot that almost always accompanies the aura.

I tried to sound calm as I called Chaz who was out on a bike ride and described what was happening to me. By the time he had heroically rushed home, the hallucination was gone and I was beginning to regain my composure, confident now that I had experienced an aura. I waited to see if classic migraine symptoms – debilitating pain, nausea, sensitivity to light and sound – followed. They didn’t. I had finally had a painless migraine, and panic notwithstanding, I’ll take this new variety over the prolonged misery of a painful one any day.

The author's animated rendition of her first migraine aura. ©Jane Chafin, 2016

It happened again a couple of weeks later. It started with a blindspot as I was trying to read something on my computer screen and quickly grew into an arc of pulsating, shifting, elongated triangles and zigzags, this time in technicolor, mostly oranges and blues, on the right side. I didn’t panic and was able to analyze and enjoy the show. At one point, Chaz, who just happened to be wearing a bright orange t-shirt, bent over to tie his shoe. The arc of his back lined up perfectly with my hallucination and it looked like orange and blue flames were shooting out of his back. I paced the floor (forget trying to do anything else) and observed the vision until it finally grew smaller and disappeared.

It’s been several months and I haven’t had another one.

Dr. Oliver Sacks, who the New York Times referred to as the “poet laureate of medicine,” wrote many books over the course of almost 50 years as a neurologist, researching and reporting on brain anomalies in accessible and entertaining prose. Among his works are The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, On the Move: A Life, an autobiography released shortly before his death last year, Hallucinations and my favorite, An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales.

“The Case of the Colorblind Painter," in Anthropologist is the story of a mature, accomplished artist, who after suffering a concussion in a car accident, becomes completely colorblind -- not your red/green-garden-variety colorblindness, but completely unable to see any color whatsoever. He struggles to recover in a black and white world.

"The Landscape of His Dreams" involves a man who becomes a painter after a strange illness. He is suddenly compelled to paint from memory every nook and cranny of his childhood home in Italy. It is as if he has a 3-D model of the town in front of him and can turn it to whatever perspective he wants. The obsession takes over and becomes his life.

These fascinating case histories go on and on in all of Sacks’ books, as he examines the abilities and disabilities of his patients with autism, mental illness, blindness, deafness, Tourette’s syndrome, savant syndrome, eidetic memory and more. Anyone interested in the workings of the human brain will find these anomalies a treasure trove of insight into its untapped potential.

I wish I could thank Sacks for diagnosing my painless migraine, for his compassion, and for the many hours of illuminating and entertaining reading he left behind.

Click here to browse Sacks' books on Amazon.com
Click here to purchase An Anthropologist on Mars

Five Years Later: "MFA: Is It Necessary?"

Five years ago, Artillery Magazine publisher, Tulsa Kinney, asked me to participate in a public one-on-one debate titled “MFA: Is It Necessary?” I said yes, but with a condition: I wanted to argue the con side. I’ve spent my life in the arts without a college degree and thought it would be hypocritical if I argued in defense of one.

As soon as I hung up the phone I was seized by panic. I had never participated in a debate before, so I put the next six weeks of my life on hold as I researched, rehearsed, fretted, lost sleep and generally drove my wonderful partner, Chaz, crazy. I was motivated not so much by the need to win (although I did want to win) but by the need not to make an idiot of myself in public.

I won the debate, a victory tempered by the fact that it was decided on the strength of applause from a raucous crowd who were swilling free vodka provided by the event’s sponsor. But more importantly, I decided to present my argument on my blog.

I’d like to know what you think, pro or con. Have things changed significantly in the last five years? Is the MFA still the standard for participating in the visual arts? Are MFA programs keeping up with the times? Are new paradigms gaining strength? If so, what are they?

The post took on a life of its own. I was quoted, requoted, invited to participate in panel discussions, thanked for helping prospective students make up their minds, and generally looked upon as the expert on why not to get an MFA. It’s still the most popular post I’ve ever published.

Robert-Fleury's Atelier at Académie Julian for female art students - painting by student Marie Bashkirtseff (1881) Wikipedia

I’m not as rabidly opposed to MFAs as you might assume. In a debate, you pick a side and you argue it. Having said that, the elitist, overly-cerebral, eye-roll-inducing, codified language games that have all but replaced the visual in the upper echelons of the visual arts are rich material for satire.

Take for instance, the following videos:

How to Graduate from Art School (animated, scripted and performed by ProbCause)

Art School VS Reality Ep.4, (written and presented by Peter Drew, filmed and directed by Frazer Dempsey)

I’d like to know what you think, pro or con. Have things changed significantly in the last five years? Is the MFA still the standard for participating in the visual arts? Are MFA programs keeping up with the times? Are new paradigms gaining strength? If so, what are they?  You can comment below or email me at janechafinsblog@gmail.com. (Be sure to let me know if I can publish your comments in a future post.)

Welcome • Codex Seraphinianus • Belloli, Falkenstein and Weston at PMCA

Welcome to my new blog! For those of you familiar with my old blog, the new one will be more of the same. I’ll be talking about art, art books, other books and occasionally, topics that fall more broadly under the umbrella of culture.

If you use the Amazon.com links to purchase a featured product, the blog gets a tiny percentage of the proceeds. Once you’ve clicked through on one of these links, anything you buy from Amazon also helps support us. (Thank you in advance.)

I would love to hear from you and for this to become a dialog. You can leave comments below or email me at janechafinsblog@gmail.com.

Let’s get to it!

Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus

I have a favorite coffee table art book these days. It doesn’t just sit on the table like a trophy to show how cultured I am (I have others for that :-). I keep it open and turn the page every couple of days to marvel at and be inspired by its display of unbridled imagination in the service of simple colored pencil drawings. Part art book, part encyclopedia, Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus catalogs an imaginary world in an unknown language, hand-written in a beautiful and indecipherable script invented by Serafini himself.

First published in 1981, this 2013 edition has been redesigned by Serafini and includes new illustrations. The gifted Serafini, who lives in Italy, is also an architect, ceramist, glazier, painter, sculptor, designer, opera director, set designer, and critic.

Leafing through the Codex at random you might find a series of ten diagrams showing the metamorphosis of a couple making love becoming a crocodile who then leaves the bed and slithers away. Another random sampling shows a chart of sixteen types of eyes, while opposite are rainbow colored teeth, odd dental contraptions, toothpaste coming from tubes in delightful coils and arabesques, and a game board where the objective seems to be to propel a recently extracted tooth from your mouth into a goal at one end of the board.

©Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini,
Rizzoli New York, 2013

Over and over again your eyes dart to the script for clarification, only to be reminded you’re on your own – you don’t know this language.

Then there’s a page with schematics showing a fried egg from above and in two elevation views, connecting grid lines running throughout. Beside it you see three fried eggs in perspective on a grid with a single vanishing point. Dashed lines, colored lines and annotations (in the unknown script) tell a story but you’re not sure what it is. On the opposite page a child sits suspended in front of an open refrigerator in a cantilevered seat that he operates with a lever.

Video: Deciphering the Secrets of Codex Seraphinianus by Great Big Story

The only known languages in this book, are in the form of a pamphletted essay by Serafini titled DECODEX and inserted into a pocket on the inside back cover. Written in Italian and translated into five other languages, Serafini tells the story of how the Codex and its invented language came into being. At the end, he confesses who the “true” author of the Codex is, explaining that he, Serafini, “was merely its manual executor.” This tongue-in-cheek confession only adds to the surreal deliciousness that is the Codex Seraphinianus.

Click here to buy from Amazon.com

I’ve just learned that Rizzoli will be releasing a new book by Serafini in October, PULCINELLOPAEDIA SERAPHINIANA. From the press release: “As he famously did in the Codex, Luigi Serafini, has created PULCINELLOPAEDIA SERAPHINIANA in a unique language all its own, and has filled it with fascinating and mysterious illustrations that will no doubt prompt devotees to obsessively try to decipher the artist’s intention.” I, for one, can’t wait!

Click here to pre-order from Amazon.com

A New Interim Director and a Pair of Stellar Shows at PMCA

Installation snaphot of Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture
at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, taken by the author.

Good news for my adopted hometown, Pasadena, CA. Curator and former Director of Gallery Programs at the Armory Center for the Arts, Jay Belloli has been appointed Interim Director of the Pasadena Museum of California Art. He is also curator of the current not-to-be-missed exhibition Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture which runs at PMCA through September 11.

Almost hidden in a back room behind Belloli’s masterfully presented Falkenstein show is Significant Details, an awe-inspiring exhibition of high contrast, black and white photo abstractions by Brett Weston, the lesser-known but no less talented son of Edward Weston. I’m so disappointed there is no catalog for Significant Details. Over half of the works on view have never been shown before, so this is our only chance to see them for now (on view through September 11).

Untitled (Wall, Europe), 1971. Silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 inches,
The Brett Weston Archive. Courtesy Christian Keesee Collection, 2016

Make an afternoon of it. Take the Gold Line to the Memorial Park Station. Have lunch at the Himalayan Café in Old Town. (My vegetarian recommendations are saag paneer, chana masala and bhel-puri, a delicious Indian street food made from puffed rice and vegetables.) Walk the few blocks to the PMCA. The PacAsia Museum is next door and the Armory Center for the Arts is only a block from the station.