How did you last event go? Generate any interest or sales? This coming Saturday is the opening at SAM of the 50th anniversary of the Gallery. It will an interesting show and include works from every artist they current represent. It is a bit of shame they didn’t seek out the artists who once there, but got kicked to the curb at the whim of the then director. Especially photographers were dumped. There was a time in the 80s and 90s when photography was a big hit there. When interest waned, a lot of photographers got booted. When I once asked why I was spared, I was told it was because my work didn’t look like a photograph. I never figured out if that was a slap in the face or a back handed compliment. But it allowed me to survive and stay in ranks. And exposure at SAM has been very good for me. My piece in the show is a vintage silver print from the 1980s. Would have been one of the first pieces I had there. It is called Space Cruise, Winslow Ferry. And shot with my Widelux panoramic camera. The title comes from a name my friend, seen in the image, coined for taking a road trip with cameras. He would set a time for the length of the trip and then get in the car and just drive, taking whatever turn in the road he would desire and stopping here and there to survey the landscape and make pictures. He would say to me, let’s go on a Space Cruise. Back then I had the time to just take off for the day, as work was slow. The trip was about 4 hours maybe and involved a couple of ferry rides. I was fairly new to Seattle then and it was a great sense of freedom to just take with no particular destination in mind. Sounds like my life. This image has always reminded me of that journey. I haven’t seen my friend in a while, but I still feel his energy and sense of adventure.
