This show features two Vermont artists using alternative photographic processes that combine historic 和 21st century technologies. Although neither artist appears in their work, each image nonetheless can be viewed as a type of self-portrait.

Thematic similarities running through Rachel 和 Vaune’s work include the impact of family, 时间的流逝, 还有摄影无情的凝视. Both artists give us a complex glimpse into their lives 和 narratives 和 provoke us to consider our own.

vune Trachtman和瑞秋Portesi will be on display September 15 – October 30. There will be an Opening Reception on Friday, September 22, from 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. 和 a Meet the 艺术ists events on Sunday, October 8, from 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Vaune荃齐曼

The works exhibited here come from two series, 漫游 和 现在就是永远.
“For a long time I have wanted to show them together, 和 I’m very happy to be able to do so for the first time here at 普特尼学校, which was so important to me during my junior 和 senior years in high school,”范恩说。.

漫游

在她的工作中 漫游, she evokes memories embedded in transitory American l和scape, 短暂地占据那些有限的空间. 这个系列以她的常数为基础, usually unconscious exploration of what it feels like to have lost her parents at an early age.

“They died a long time ago– my father when I was five 和 my mother when I was 15. I was pretty much on my own after that, 和 rarely in one place for very long,范恩说。. “For many years, the view out a car or train window felt more like home than wherever I was living. Over time, I’ve developed a kinship with the other side of that window, that sometimes-mirror. 桥梁和公路, 栈桥和屋顶, the husks of industrial towns racing by at two or three in the morning.”

漫游 is primarily about her brief inhabitations of these places, her evanescent homes.

“I want to preserve some of the energy left behind by those who build 和 pass through these locations, 我们的生活,范恩说。. “在这些作为风景的自画像中, I’m seeking a convergence of longing 和 the l和, 缺失与充实, 静止与运动, 物质世界和梦境.”

现在就是永远

Vaune’s exploration of personal narratives in her 现在就是永远 series collaborates across time with her father’s images from the 1930s with her own current imagery seamlessly melding archival negatives with contemporary imagery.

现在就是永远 is supported by a grant from the Vermont 艺术s Council the National Endowment for the 艺术s. Additional support has come from the Vermont Studio Center 和 the Tusen Takk Foundation.

“In 现在就是永远，我在这些地点添加了人员. The people come from archival negatives my father shot in Depression-era Philadelphia, 在他父亲的药店附近,范恩说。.

在他拍下这些照片将近90年后, 她拿到了底片, 她把这些和自己的图像结合在一起, creating a sense of collapsed-yet-exp和ed time.

“是的, 我想看看我父亲看到了什么, 是的, I want him to see what I see—but I also want the viewer to look at the past, 我希望过去的一切都能回到过去. I want viewer 和 subject to feel each other’s gaze,” she said.

By combining images taken almost a century apart, she also integrates layers of technology 和 image-making history:

“他1930年代的傻瓜摄影作品, 我的iPhone, 他的银明胶底片, 我的Photoshop文件, 还有墨水的传统, 费力的工作, 还有一台凹版印刷机,范恩说。.

瑞秋Portesi

瑞秋的作品使用了多种媒介, 人造偏光板, 湿板, 和安装, to examine the commemorative portrait 和 the use of photography to hold still moments in our changing identities. Thematic similarities in their work include the impact of family, 时间的流逝, 还有摄影无情的凝视.

Inspired by the Victorian practice of honoring the dead by making memento mori artwork from hair, Portesi的 头发肖像 examine her own changing female identity 和 internal world by making memento mori to honor “past selves”. 她也, works to collapse—和 exp和—a sense of time 和 narrative by using a mix of media including 人造偏光板, 湿板, 锡类型, 视频安装

“These images address fertility, sexuality, creativity, nurturing, harmony, 和 discord. 它们是一种反应——部分是直觉, part deliberate — to a time when the scaffolding of my life seemed to disappear,瑞秋说.

“I think some of us assume that the same woman will reemerge on the other side of motherhood. 我想是的。”她说. “But suddenly my kids didn’t need me like they had 和 the Rachel I’d been before becoming a parent was irrelevant, 走了. I experienced this as a loss, 和 grieving it raised questions. 我变成了谁?? Which parts of my old self were best left behind? 我想要怎样成长?”

She was drawn to early photography 和 its particularly Victorian interest in loss 和 death. Commemorative portraits honoring the dead were fashionable 和 in dem和. Another peculiar fixation of the era struck her: hair. 艺术, 雕塑, even mementos of the time consistently used tresses of hair as both object 和 subject, 探索损失与成长, 和 presenting a fertile new direction to explore.

这些照片是一个正在进行的系列的一部分 头发肖像 使用湿版胶版锡版, 人造偏光板, 电影, 和 3D imagery to explore the nuanced transitions in female identity related to motherhood, 老化, 和 choice as well as the intersection of identity 和 femininity with the physical world.

“当我参与这种新模式时, my models became conduits of self-reflection — a way to look at the confines of my chosen female role from the outside,瑞秋说. “And there I observed a post-maternal kind of strength wholly different from the role I’d inhabited before motherhood. 现在看看他们, 墙上的这些图像, photographs of elaborate hair 雕塑s constructed in my studio to change. 我选择放弃自己的一部分. 其他的都是我带来的.”