Response to print of Green Hill, Washington, 2010

Newsflash! Laura has two photographs in the recent print issue of TRICYCLE MAGAZINE!!

Laura Plageman, my talented daughter-in-law, just won a major international photography competition. She was selected from the ten Hot Shots of 2011. The “Hey, Hot Shot!” award gives her $10,000, a solo exhibition and two years representation at the Jen Bekman Gallery in NYC.

Response #1 to Print of Thicket, 2006

I have to do the mom-brag here, because I love her work and I know how difficult it is to be recognized in the arts – especially photography. Here are some of her photos, for you to enjoy. I need to mention that exactly one week before winning this prize, she gave birth to a beautiful, delicate daughter named Maeve Clementine. What a perfect tiny being, a sister to Oona, who is going on three!  Thanks to Laura and her husband Ammon, I now have two beautiful granddaughters. This is a feast of love, harmony, and beauty. I am so delighted that Laura is rewarded for her on-going creativity at a time when nursing and fussing with every-day practicalities can leave most mothers feeling far from the creative muse. A description of the work:

 A fold in the print, when re-photographed, serves as a tool to deflect and distribute light, for instance. The crisp details accentuate and enhance the evident artist’s touches. The images in Plageman’s series touch upon nature and “the hand of man” in both a literal and figurative sense, while simultaneously making the elements within the picture—the documented, the fabricated, the manipulated—meld and interact with one another to create an entirely new landscape, an entirely new creation.

Response to Print of Inspiration Point, California, 2011

Laura Plageman is an artist and educator who lives and works in Oakland, CA. Her images explore the relationships between the process of image making, photographic truth and distortion, and the representation of landscape. She is interested in making pictures that examine the natural world as a scene of mystery, beauty and constant change—transformed both by human presence and by its own design. Plageman has exhibited her work in San Francisco, New York, Portland and Galway, Ireland. She earned a BA at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) and an MFA from the California College of the Arts (San Francisco, CA). She has taught photography at Wesleyan.

LAURA’S WEBSITE: < http://photolp.com/&gt;

This photograph is from a series called “Not Your Ordinary Garden Variety Plants.” It was in a show in NYC some years ago and Laura’s theme was Defiance. The weeds represent defiant vegetation, while the graffiti on the wall makes up the human counterpart. I have a print from this series on my living room wall.

May she continue to be inspired and recognized!

Response to Print of Trumpet Vine, Hawaii, 2011