Judith Joy Ross' Recent Works: "The Devil Today and Reading to Dogs", Meditations on Nature and Protest

(guest blog post by Charles Elliott) Armen and I had the pleasure this week of viewing Judith Joy Ross’ latest exhibition of photographs at Pace/MacGill Gallery, “The Devil Today and Reading to Dogs”, her first exhibition of works in color, presenting thirteen large-scale archival pigment ink prints.  For some accustomed to Ross’ black and white portraiture, this work will seem at first to be a significant departure.  Yet, the work familiarly evinces Ross’ sensitivity to the human condition and her keen focus on current social and political concerns.  In this series of works, we see children at play in a dappled sunlit wooded setting of a wildlife rehabilitation center (“Aark Foundation”) and photographs depicting close bonds between people and animals. These photographs are exhibited with images of protestors opposing hydraulic fracturing and projects such as the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and the proposed construction of electric transmission lines cutting through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

While this may be Judith Ross’ first foray into color photography, the use of color serves her well here, bringing a vivid elemental immediacy appropriate for the urgent concerns within her point of view.

 “Reading to Dogs” explores human relationships with nature:  a young boy, his face alight with the joy and pride of holding in his arms a rabbit swaddled as though an infant; a young woman face to face with an alpaca, her hands lightly embracing the alpaca’s long neck in a loving gesture; a farming family in rural Pennsylvania, with a woman lying down, embracing a piglet, her thighs mud-caked, embedded in the earthen natural world.

“The Devil Today”, with its imagery of citizen activists, depicts the all-too-few voices of protest against the most current versions of exploitation and spoliation of natural resources. In one image, we see Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (LEPOCO) protestors lined up along a roadway in a location that, at first glance, is seemingly remote. A small detail – a sign pointing to the location of a “Governor’s Event” – reveal the protestors to be precisely positioned to address a very specific audience: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, elected with the help of campaign contributions from supporters of the state’s burgeoning natural gas industry. In another, we see the calm courage of a young woman waiting to speak to the Delaware River Basin Commission in opposition to water withdrawal permits for “hydrofracking.”

 “The Devil Today” and “Reading to Dogs” might be seen as two separate bodies of work. Indeed, they are explicitly not juxtaposed, but exhibited separately within Pace/MacGill’s intimate gallery space. Yet the exhibition presents a single coherent vision. Its emotional power is gathered from the potent poignancy which the works on each side of the gallery lend to the other: on one side, the protesting voices that seek to protect the increasingly fragile web of connections between people and the natural world, visually described with such sensitivity in the other. In one, we see those who stand against -- in Gary Snyder’s clear-eyed poetic phrase -- “the work of wrecking the world” and in the other, what we stand to lose.

Exhibition at Pace/MacGill Gallery, 32 E. 57th Street, New York, NY, through January 28, 2012.

Alex & Leslie's Armenian Wedding at St Vartan's Cathedral in NYC

What a treat to end the year with this extraordinary wedding!  Alex and Leslie were married in the same magnificent cathedral where I was wed.  Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, the Primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church in North America, performed the ceremony.

St. Vartan Cathedral is the first cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church to be constructed in North America.  Its architectural plan is patterned after the 4th-century church of St. Hripsime in Armenia, and includes two distinctive features of Armenian Church architecture.  The first is the use of the double-intersecting arches to span the interior space, eliminating the need for columns.  The second is its pyramidal dome, soaring 120 feet above street level and supported by the intersecting arches.

You may remember Leslie and Alex from their Central Park engagement session.  Their wedding day was filled with dancing, beginning with the groom's preparation for the ceremony.  Guests from California, Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts and a dozen other states as well as Australia and Canada attended.

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Approximately 90 invited guests were Lafayette College alumni.

Preparations:  The Hudson Hotel
Ceremony:  St Vartan Armenian Cathedral
Officiants: His Eminence Archibishop Khajag Barsamian assisted by
The Reverend Father Mardiros Chevian, Deacon Sebuh Oscherician
Reception: 583 Park Avenue

Florist: Pearl River Florist

Event Planner:  Jeffrey Calandra
Band: The Continentals Orchestra
Makeup:  The Posh Bride
Dress: Pnina Tornai
Lighting:  Frost Productions
Photographic Team: Armen Elliott, assisted by Ed Eckstein and Marco Calderon

From Cabin to Castle-Engagement Session at Fonthill

It's always a pleasure to drive down to beautiful Bucks County, so when Anne and Chris suggested Fonthill Castle for their engagement session I was excited at the prospect.  It was the first time we'd met and I learned that these two romantics had their first date at the Sunset Grille and talked way past 4AM.  It sounded like the dawn of a romance at the Sunset Grille. (I just couldn't resist).

I 'm looking forward to photographing their wedding at Aldie Mansion next July.

The Young People's Philharmonic at Allentown Symphony Hall

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of once again taking photographs backstage with the very talented and delightful young musicians of The Lehigh Valley Young People's Philharmonic and Junior String Philharmonic.  Jerry and Nancy Bidlack have been giving children the opportunity to participate in this challenging orchestra for over 30 years.  Even after years of observing the Bidlacks at work, their patience and dedication to the education of young musicians still amazes me.  There are no easy adaptations or arrangements of classical pieces played here -- just "unadulterated classics."
For more information, visit their website: YPP-JSP.org