The photography exhibit now gracing the walls of the Marion Art Center tells two stories, both of adventure and surprise, but in two strikingly different ways.
Both masters of their medium, one of the artists rejoices in the journey through childhood when everything in a child’s own backyard is a new discovery, while the other epitomizes the journey of the traveler, the adventurer, gathering experience on a grand scale along vast landscapes and faraway lands.
Corinna Raznikov is well known in the Town of Marion. She has spent a lot of time with children – her own and those in the community – capturing moments of discovery and imagination with her camera lens and sharing them with the children, the community, and you.
“Children are both natural philosophers and scientists,” said Raznikov, surrounded by a room packed with people on April 25, the evening of the show’s opening reception.
On the ground floor, Raznikov’s black and white photos are big, yet they feel intimate, portraying children studying objects, bringing the viewer so close that one can almost see the wonder through the children’s own eyes.
“I give them an object,” said Raznikov, “and I photograph them experimenting and watch what they are doing,” said Raznikov. She said she is celebrating and honoring childhood through her art.
Upstairs, the wall is lined with black and white photos from a project six years in the making, photographing over 500 students at the Sippican School on their annual “Vocabulary Day,” when students choose a new vocabulary word and bring the word to life by dressing up in costumes they make to define their chosen word.
Raznikov photographs each student dressed in his or her costume and gives each one a free copy to keep. She has also compiled all the photos she took over the six years she worked with the Sippican School in a book she will donate to the school once the MAC exhibition is through. The book is on display in the upstairs gallery.
She will also donate all profits from selling her photos from the Vocabulary Day on display at the MAC to the Sippican School’s Etta Hicks-Allen Library.
“And that’s my way of giving back to the community,” said Raznikov.
Artist and Photographer Ronald Wisner has been all over the world, armed with an array of cameras from some of the earliest old-fashioned models, to the modern and mundane iPhone camera, the only one he had on him when he saw something spectacular of which he just had to take a photo.
One photograph on display captures the viewer’s attention right when they walk through the MAC door into the downstairs gallery. It’s a perspective of the Golden Gate Bridge one rarely ever sees, a once in a lifetime opportunity granted to Wisner by an associate he knew on the “bridge commission” who allowed Wisner to climb to the top of the south tower.
“I doubt that they even let people do that anymore,” said Wisner.
As awkward as the climb might be, imagine lugging a boxy, wooden eight by ten-inch sheet film camera from 1895 with you.
“There I was at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge setting [the camera] up with a dark cloth over my head.”
The camera that he used to take the shot and several others he used taking photos in the exhibit are on display at the MAC in the downstairs gallery.
Wisner has taught photography in different parts of the world like Italy, Greece, and Colorado, all of which are represented in the show in the form of marvelous, mysterious black and white photos of foreign landscapes and remarkable views.
The show remains until May 31, and the gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 1:00 – 5:00 pm, and Saturday 10:00 am – 2:00 pm.
By Jean Perry
