Young Couple, Windsor, MA

New work.

Getting to know Dominique and Jordan. They have a wonderland in the woods with Nubian goats, Romanov sheep, rabbits, chickens, ducks, a shy cat, and a sweet dog.

For today, for now, a poem by Jessica Greenbaum:

New Rooms

The mind must
set itself up
wherever it goes
and it would be
most convenient
to impose its
old rooms – just
tack them up
like an interior
tent. Oh but
the new holes
aren’t where
the windows
went.

The good Will of a Flower
The Man who would possess
Must first present
Certificate
Of minted Holiness.

Emily Dickinson, c.1864

For years I wanted to check out the traveling amusement park in Dalton, MA. I finally had the opportunity and was looking forward to some brilliant sunset-light moments. People of all ages in the midst of experiencing this old-time pastime. The carnival outdoor fun with thrill rides, family rides, food and game concessions.  In great anticipation I headed over hoping the photography gods will bestow upon me some sweet decisive moments . Alas… by the time I arrived it was all over…  No crowds of locals, no hang-gliding sensation screams, no thrill ride sounds, no merry-go-round nostalgic music and with brave toddlers riding on make-believe horses. I didn’t realize that it all closed down on Sunday at 6:00 pm! Yep, the folks running the Mark Fanelli Travelling Amusement Park were halfway done wrapping it all up at 6:45 pm. I walked around for few minutes taking few pictures, sulking in disappointment over my own oblivion.

I was just about to leave when a car pulled up and a beautiful family of six got out. They too thought the fair was still going on! We spoke for a few minutes when I realized the main reason I wanted to photograph at the amusement park was the opportunity to take portraits of people. Some candids but also actual portraits, to speak with the person being photographed. Taking photographs of strangers isn’t easy for me.  Yet here was this wonderful opportunity, which perhaps wouldn’t have happenned if the amusement park was in full swing. So I asked them if I could take their picture and to my delight they said yes! But the best part is that I will be able to photograph them again and I’m very much looking forward to that!

Be open to the unexpected.

North Adams

Faye, North Adams

Mural with bench, North Adams

Kevin, North Adams

New images. New stories. New possibilities.

Amber

This post will be updated.

Recently I visited the studio of Brece Honeycutt, a visual artist whose work draws inspiration from nature and history.  As an undergraduate at Skidmore College, Brece majored in art history and eventually pursued a graduate degree at Columbia University in studio art focusing on sculpture. Since then her artistic output has evolved beyond one medium and now encompases painting, drawing, book making and a unique vintage-couture line.  Often combining elements from a range of genres, Brece’s work results in delicately elaborate installations. Entering her studio bespeaks of experiencing such installations.

Located near the town of Egremont, Massachusetts, the studio resonates with its outdoor surroundings and everything contained inside: Brece’s paintings, drawings, sketches, artist books, newspaper clippings, found abandoned birds’ nests, twigs, baskets of dried flowers to be used for natural dyes, colorful yarns, pencils, brushes, crayons, rulers.. It’s a feast for the senses. The place has a sense of order, a serenity but also an invitation to explore and play.

A sense of contemplation permeates. Things are brought from the outside and carefully arranged with other similar objects. There are couple of dedicated work/production spaces and others reserved for reading, listening, looking out the windows. The studio is across the street from where Brece resides and it too was once part of a colonial farm. A barn-like structure, the studio building not too long ago housed an antiques store.  A beautiful rolling hill landscape stretches out behind leading to a pond. The surroundings framed by birch and other trees are in visible dialogue with Brece’s work. The environment both shapes and informs it.

In Brece’s words: “The studio for me is both outside & inside.  As I walk outside to soak in the place, to trod the adjacent fields and forests, my pockets fill with the landscape’s treasures–birch bark with its dots and dashes, unfurling hornet’s nests, fallen flowers & leaves, cast-off feathers; and at the same time, my mind undertakes the cataloguing of the daily changes–freshly sprouted spring ephemerals, the autumn return of the junco, the mint filled with feasting honeybees.  Later, these findings and sitings inform my work, and become marks on both paper and cloth and imbue the interior, mind and space, with the spirit of the exterior.”

This post is an attempt at showing that “spirit of the exterior” Brece refers to above. The images desire to reveal the atmosphere of the studio without focusing on the actual work.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to photograph, or how, when I first got the idea of wanting to ‘document’ her studio. I just felt compelled to do so inspired by the wonder and beauty encountered there.  We briefly spoke about the importance of having a studio and what that experience is like.

In addition to Brece’s statement above, she also sent the quote below from Susan Howe’s book, “Debths,” which so profoundly evokes the artist’s practice:

“Our eyes see what is outside in the landscape in the form of words on paper but inside, a slash or mark wells up from a deeper place where music before counting hails from.”  Susan Howe, Debths, (New York: New Directions, 2017), pg. 22.

Inspired by Brece’s work, the afternoon we spent together conversing about art, nature, books and life as well as my introduction to Susan Howe’s writing (thank you Brece!), a another quote from “Debths” as an endnote:

“Life/soul. Color, bearing, shape, magnitude, figure, habits corporis, anima.”

For more information about Brece Honeycutt and to see her work please check out her website at: brecehoneycutt.com

Pick a color give it a name, North Adams

Derek, North Adams

Main Street, North Adams

Jacks, North Adams

Tag Sale, North Adams

Here’s more images from the North Adams: beyond Place project. This is the looking stage. Looking at what was photographed, what the images reveals, how it works, if it works.   Contrary to popular belief photographs aren’t as instant as they appear to be. They need time to be understood and brought out.

I’ll leave it at that today.

Well, maybe just one more thing: an 1880’s bird’s eye view map drawing of North Adams. I believe it was drawn, or commissioned by H.H. Rowley & Co., who published it. I think… doing research.

Your feedback is much appreciated so please – don’t hesitate to write something. Thanks!

Storefront with broken mirror, North Adams

Young boy, North Adams

Angel with poodle and broken hand, North Adams

Building corner, North Adams

Young woman at bus stop, North Adams

Small town with big sky above in the valley of a mythical mountain.

A mill town once for a very, very long time that seemed like forever. Everyone worked in one or another making things. Shoes, bricks, textiles, hats, cabinets… the list goes on. And when one of the biggest companies no longer could make money, a great electric company took over and prosperity continued again. For a while. But not even the powerful torrent of a river could keep things going in face of changing times. These days art is “manufactured” in the former Sprague Electric Company.

North Adams, where I got to spent some time this past summer working for a cultural organization (not Mass MoCA). The images above are part of yet another project started recently. There’s something about North Adams, as well as most of the former mill towns in the Berkshires. History, nature, the people. The place has presence. It does. It wants to be noticed and cared for and, dare I say, loved in spite of the troubles small towns grapple with.

But what makes a place? A confluence of the people who live there, the structures they inhabit, the roads and streets, the businesses, shops, the surroundings.

Photography allows for a kind of immediacy that makes it the best conduit to explore these ways of being in a time and place. Photography does capture but releases, starting a story to behold.

Doing some preliminary research on the history of North Adams, I found out that the Hoosic River, which flows through the town and has provided the indispensable power needed for past industries, derives its name from the Alonquian language. Hoosic River translates as: the beyond place. It literary refers to the fact that the river, a tributary of Hudson River,  flows beyond, or east of, the Hudson. For my project I want to expand on the notion of being of and at the same time beyond a place as a universal human condition. Using photography to poetically interpret the present time as it relates to history, nature, need for beauty and form. To begin with.

Many thanks for looking and please feel comfortable to comment.

Suddenly the flies. I’ve been forewarned, in a  way, when visiting a friend’s studio just the other day. She too has been advised by her friend. And so on and so forth. The 24 hour flies. Expected to be gone, as in dead, by the next day. They like to congragate on windows, perhaps wanting to find a way out or maybe they just like the view, or the light.. Occasionally one scouts out the premises making roundabouts through the rooms. Drives Ruby bonkers, but it’s something to do for her trying to catch one. I don’t interfere. In fact I encourage her to run and jump after them.  The life of a dog can often be quite boring.

So there. A story. A fragment. A thought. A something on this already late morning in an even later part of the year I suddenly awake to.

The images a work in progress, which emerged finally and needs lots of attention.

October 19, 2017

PS – Hello again

© Monika Sosnowski

“Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all things?” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

For a little over a year I’ve been gathering images and ideas for this work. No official title yet. For time being it is a work in progress aka the Hudson River project. Here’s some most recent photographs.

Mia © Monika Sosnowski

Untitled © Monika Sosnowski

Last month I posted a few images related to this project. It’s the Yonkers entry and can be accessed by clicking on the link.  I’ve also been posting throughout the year on Instagram and Facebook. The portrait below was originally published in color but I really like the mood that emerges in black and white.

Nate © Monika Sosnowski 2017

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