Tag: write around PAM

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984), Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park about 1937, Photograph, gelatin silver print, 2018.2722, *Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Lane Collection, *© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, *Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Photographs take us to places and times we might never see otherwise. Even on this summery day, this picture by Ansel Adams transports us to snowy grandeur shrouded by clouds and fog. If you were on one of these rocks in the clouds, how would you feel? Let your imagination take you there today as…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Ansel Adams

Image Description: Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park. Ansel Adams. 1960. Gelatin silver print. Black and white photo of the sheer cliff wall of Half Dome in Yosemite under a waxing gibbous moon. The white moonlight reflects off the expansive Half Dome cliff edge highlighting the detailed texture in the rock appearing as vertical white lines. The jagged edges of the cliff are sharp and the top of the dome on the right appears smooth. A black edge of another cliff appears on the left side in the foreground. A large shadow in the shape of a backward L covers the right side of Half Dome extending from the right side of the photo into the middle. The rocks at the bottom of the two cliffs are slightly blurred and partially covered by shadows.
Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National ParkAnsel Adams (American, 1902–1984)1960Photograph, gelatin silver print2018.2681*Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Lane Collection*© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust*Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Some places are so iconic, so famous, that they seem to carry their own personalities with them. You could imagine what they might be saying to one another about the world around them, about the weather, about the throngs of people who come to see them. During this holiday weekend, we invite you to spend…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Mitch Epstein

Image description: Altamont Pass Wind Farm, Mitch Epstein, photograph, chromogenic print. A landscape photograph of a golf course set amid bare, brown rolling hills with wind turbines. The top half of the photo features a cloudless pale blue sky and low brown hills dotted with silver wind turbines. Some are fairly close and some recede into the distance. A green, manicured golf course cuts across the middle of the photo. Four figures stand on the green, two appearing to bend down to tee up and the two others standing on either side of them. Striped lawn mowing marks are evident on the left side of the green. Below, a paved path has two small white golf carts parked one behind the other. At the lower edge of the photo, the grass tapers off to a dusty sandy flat area that fills the bottom fifth of the photo.
Mitch Epstein (American, born in 1952) Altamont Pass Wind Farm, California, 2007, Photograph, chromogenic print Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery , Reproduced with permission. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

As we deepen into summer, and record heat, droughts, and wildfires become part of the normal rhythms of the season, we are asked to reflect more about our response to the changing climate. Can we live in harmony with the earth? Where does our footprint end and nature begin? Photographer Mitch Epstein’s series American Power…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Jonathan Calm

Image description: Double Vision (Record), Jonathan Calm, pigment print. A vertical rectangular photograph of man using a camera on a tripod near an oceanside cliff. The man is seen from the side, his camera pointed to the left. The camera has a large black bellows attached to a lens and stands on light-colored wooden tripod legs. The man is mostly concealed under a dark cloth with only his bare legs and the fingers of one hand visible. He is dark skinned and barefoot. He stands on rough, brown ground with cliffs and the ocean behind him. The upper half of the photo contains a pale blue sky.
Jonathan Calm (American, born 1971) Double Vision (Record), 2018, pigment print, Portland Art Museum, Museum purchase: Photography Fund, 2020.25.2

This photograph from Jonathan Calm offers a unique glimpse behind the camera, a chance to see the artist at work. As we celebrate Father’s Day today, we invite you to reflect on someone “behind the scenes” in your life who offers you support, care, guidance, and inspiration. Someone who embodies the caring support of fatherhood…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Ansel Adams

Image description: Grass and Burned Stump, Sierra Nevada, California, Ansel Adams, gelatin silver print. A black and white, vertical photograph of a close-up view of a burned tree stump with grass growing at its base. Most of the photo features the highly textured burned tree bark. Deep cracks run vertically down the trunk and off to a thick root that extends to the left. The bark breaks down into uneven, corrugated segments between the vertical cracks, giving the trunk a wrinkled appearance. Sparse blades of grass grow at the base about a third of the way up the photo and are highlighted against the dark shadow on the trunk.
Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Grass and Burned Stump, Sierra Nevada, California, 1935, Photograph, gelatin silver print 2018.2440 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Lane Collection, © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Last Sunday, we invited you to spend some time writing with Laura McPhee’s Midsummer (Lupine and Fireweed), which offered a scene of blooming wildflowers at the foot of charred tree trunks. Today, let’s spend some time with this photograph by Ansel Adams, which McPhee cites as an inspiration for her work. Notice how a closer…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Laura McPhee

Image description: Midsummer, (Lupine and Fireweed), Laura McPhee, inkjet print. A landscape-oriented photograph of charred tree trunks densely packed with few branches amid a forest floor abundant with greenery and purple lupine spires. The upper two-thirds of the photo contains blackened tree trunks against a gray sky. The trunks can be seen receding well into the distance. The bottom third of the work shows bright green foliage and clumps of spiky purple lupine blooms in the sunshine. The trees in the foreground show crenellated, burnt, black bark. A tree on the right has lost parts of its bark and has its pale beige wood exposed.
Laura McPhee Midsummer (Lupine and Fireweed), 2008 Photograph, inkjet print Courtesy of the artist. © Laura McPhee. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

 “Photographing in the burned forest was one of the great, joyful experiences of my life,” Laura McPhee has said, “finding that catastrophe to be so beautiful,… so stunningly unexpected.” In McPhee’s Midsummer (Lupine and Fireweed), landscape provides a metaphor for loss and the regenerative power of natural cycles. This week, we invite you to contemplate…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Catherine Opie

Image description: Untitled #1 (Yosemite Valley), Catherine Opie, pigment print. A portrait oriented, color photograph of a distant waterfall and mountain range framed by evergreen trees. The photograph is out of focus, giving it a painterly quality. At center is a waterfall emanating from a mountain ridge near the top of the image. The colors are faded beiges and white. Evergreen trees flank both sides of the waterfall. Beginning at top right and continuing on a slant to near center bottom, a block of dark evergreen trees creates a deep V shape framing the waterfall and continuing in a wispy fashion on the left edge of the photo. A pale blue sky completes the composition.
Catherine Opie , Untitled #1 (Yosemite Valley), 2015 Photograph, pigment print 2018.2220, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Stephen D. and Susan W. Paine Acquisition Fund for 20th century and Contemporary Art, © Catherine Opie, Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

How can we bring new understanding, new light to something we already know so well? Catherine Opie’s Untitled #1 (Yosemite Valley) offers us a place to start. Opie’s photography gives us new ways of seeing iconic landscapes. We invite you to spend some time today writing with this photograph and discovering what comes up for…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Ansel Adams

[Image description: Ansel Adams, Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Monument, California, gelatin silver print. A black and white, portrait-oriented photograph of steep sand dunes shown in high contrast shadow and light. The ridge of the main dune begins at upper left, crosses to the upper right then zig zags down to the lower edge of the photo. The steep sides contrast in tone. The right side of the dune is bathed in light and appears as pale gray, while the left slope of the dune is split between being almost black at its upper portion then changing to a medium gray as the dune catches more sunshine. In the background a black, horizontal dune appears, stretching from left to right contrasting with the highlights of the main dunes’ ridge. At upper right in the background, a distant dune appears as a medium gray tone.]
Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984), Sand Dunes, Sunrise, Death Valley National Monument, California, Negative date: about 1948, Photograph, gelatin silver print, 2018.2686, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Lane Collection, © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

This work by Ansel Adams captures the seemingly solid, yet always fluid, energy of sand dunes. Shifting under foot, blowing in wind, never looking the same day to day, and yet steadily there. This “sand dune” energy feels like it mirrors our ever-shifting realities as we continue to grapple with changes at school, work, and…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Ansel Adams

The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, Ansel Adams, gelatin silver print. A landscape photograph showing the jagged peaks of the Grand Teton mountain range as a backdrop to the sharply curved Snake River in the foreground. The mountains begin a third of the way down from the top and stretch across the width of the photo. Snow-covered, jagged peaks overlap against a dramatic sky of clouds with sun breaking through. Below the mountains, low rolling hills meet the S curved river seen emerging from the vegetation at the center right. The river crosses diagonally to the left and switches back to the right at the bottom of the work. Steep scrub covered hills rise from the river edge at left. Low lying trees and vegetation fill in the right of the photo, while evergreen trees are seen at the bottom in the foreground.
Ansel Adams, The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942 Photograph, gelatin silver print. 2018.2733. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Lane Collection. © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

How do you feel when you look at this photograph of the Grand Tetons and the Snake River? Today and over the coming months, our Write Around PAM prompts will take inspiration from the Ansel Adams in Our Time exhibition currently on view at the museum. Adams took breathtaking landscape photographs of the American West,…  Read more

Categories
Community Discover Learn

Write Around PAM: Romare Bearden

[Image Description: Family (Mother and Child). Romare Bearden.. 1980. Color screenprint on cream wove paper. 18in H x 14 in W. A Black mother sits on a brown chair with her right arm around her child who is wearing a blue dress and white shoes. The mother has short curly black hair with brown highlights and a yellow square coming out the back, white triangular earrings, a reddish brown nose and lips, a dark blue long sleeve dress with light blue outlines with a white shirt underneath, a reddish orange apron, and light brown shoes. Her eyes and nose are outlined with blue lines and her hands are large and appear more dimensional than the other parts of her body. Her left hand rests on her knee and her right hand is held with thumb and third finger touching while resting on the child’s elbow. The child has short dark curly hair with a white triangle coming out the back and white eyes. She stands with her left side resting on her mother’s apron looking towards the right side of the print. Her arm bent at the elbow, palm open and facing up. A bright blue wall is behind the chair with a painting with green hills, trees, white sky, and blue clouds with a light gray frame. There is a dark blue shape under the painting that resembles an arched entryway. The chair is sitting on a floor consisting of light gray, dark gray, and blue rectangles - some vertical and some horizontal. The angles are such that it creates somewhat of an optical illusion.]

As we celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday, we invite you to think of a person who has been a strong maternal presence in your life. It could be your mother, grandmother, auntie, close friend, teacher or other care provider, another parent, guardian, or person close to you. Someone who embodies the care and love and…  Read more