The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions.  Jeremiah Dine’s  image “The Narcissist 1991“ received the Juror’s Award in the “portraits” exhibition juried by Elizabeth Flinsch.  Jeremiah’s exhibition “Anne-Marie” was featured from April 1 to April 30, 2024 and is discussed in our GalleryTalk with Jeremiah.

Please note:  YouTube put an age restriction of over 18 to be viewed.  In order to view the video click on “watch on YouTube” and follow the instructions. You do have to have a YouTube account. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Artist Statement

The images in Anne-Marie involve not just one camera, one face and body, one pair of eyes, but two consciousness merged to make something that didn’t exist    before, and that only existed at that one moment in time.

Francine Prose from her introduction

When you are in love with someone, their life, past, present and future, becomes in a curious way part of your life; and yet, at the same time, since two separate human entities in fact remain, you merely carry your own prejudices into another person’s imagined existence; not even into their ‘real’ existence, because only they themselves can estimate what their ‘real’ existence has been. 

Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World

 I can still remember that moment when I first saw her. July 1985. Blind date. We met in front of Cooper Union. She had a red bandana in her hair. I was shocked at how beautiful and cool she was. We spent the day together in a blur. She was funny and smart and sexy and seemed to like me. 10 hours later we were planning our next date. 

 These photographs are like our life. Some are beautiful, composed, and thoughtful, while others are out of focus, blurry, and poorly exposed. All of them were taken with the same aim- a desire to capture that thing that continues to fascinate me- the essential Anne-Marie.

Jeremiah Dine, October 2023

Anne-Marie and Jeremy met in 1985, while he was working as a studio assistant to Richard Avedon. Anne-Marie was working in the art department at Mademoiselle Magazine. They were fixed up on a blind date by their mutual friend Yolanda Cuomo, who was art directing at both of their jobs. It was literally love at first sight.

Anne-Marie immediately became part of his ongoing photographic “project”, AKA life.

They got married, had kids, moved multiple times, had health and economic issues,

lived through personal and global crises. Through all this she has been his constant artistic subject, as she has been his constant partner in love, art, parenting and friendship. This book is a document of 38 years together, their shared passion for each other, the world around them, and their vision as fellow artists.

Shot using a combination of 35mm and 120mm film, Digital, Polaroid, iPhone, Disposable camera, black and white and color, manipulated and “straight”. Designed by Yolanda Cuomo, edited by Yolanda Cuomo and Jeremiah Dine, with an essay by Francine Prose.

Jeremiah Dine, 2023

Bio

Jeremiah Dine is a New York City based Fine Art Photographer. After attending The Cooper Union, Jeremiah Dine published a book, Natural Selection (London/Stuttgart: Editions Hansjörg Mayer, 1983), 104 photographs taken at the American Museum of Natural History. Dine spent 2 years as a studio assistant to Richard Avedon, and then worked as a commercial/art photographer. His commercial clients included Conde Nast Publications, Simon & Schuster, and USA Today. His photographs were also published in Interview Magazine, The Village Voice, Esquire Japan, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others. Dine’s second book, Daydreams Walking, 196 photographs shot on the streets of New York City, was published by Damiani in Spring 2020. Dine’s newest book project is Now is Tomorrow, 3 volumes of which were published by Understory Books in 2022.  Dine’s work is in many public and private collections around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.

website: jeremiahdine.com
instagram: @jeremy_dine

link to online exhibition

The Photographic Performance was created to feature the works of artist with completed bodies of work and a strong narrative. Aimee McCrory’s exhibition “ROLLER COASTER“ is the second of four performances to be exhibited during 2024.  Aimee’s exhibition is discussed in this GalleryTalk.

Artist Statement

ROLLER COASTER / Scenes from a Marriage is a cinematic exploration of the complexities and challenges that arise in long-term relationships. It began during the height of the pandemic when I was overwhelmed with a perhaps irrational fear of losing my husband Don to the virus. Photography was a way to express my emotions.

At first, Don was hesitant to participate, but gradually I enticed him. I paid close attention to our environment, our day-to-day activities and how we interacted. My observations revealed a variety of scenarios ranging from comical to concerning.

Through storyboards, staging, lighting, and wardrobe, I began to plan each photograph, drawing on my background in theater. The process of creating these pictures was emotionally and physically complex, but it brought us closer together as a couple. We laughed, cried, fought, and loved through the experience.

Overall, our project has been an extraordinary ride that has allowed us to grow as individuals and as a couple. What started as a single experiment soon evolved into a much larger project that aimed to capture the ordinary and extraordinary moments of our four-decade-long marriage.

Bio

Aimee B. McCrory’s photography centers on self-portraits, feminist themes, aging, and complex family dynamics. Her current project, “ROLLER COASTER / Scenes from a Marriage,” forms the basis of this potential exhibition.

Recent achievements include her recognition as a Top 50 in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2023 competition, an Honorable Mention in the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards in July, and a similar mention in the 19th Annual Pollux Awards held in Barcelonain February. In May 2023, her work was featured at the Kolga Tbilisi Fotofest in Georgia, and she participated in The Houston Center of Photography’s 40th Annual Show in June 2023. In 2022, she received a Special Merit award from the Texas Photographic Society and secured second place in TPS’s New Visions 2022 competition.

Aimee’s work has been showcased in several publications, including Huck Magazine in May2023, Pictura Gallery’s blog in August 2023, and the Texas Photographic Society’s Member News newsletter.

McCrory has been engaged in an intensive mentorship with Chehalis Hegner since 2020. She has participated in workshops with Keith Carter. She also studied with Lynn Lane.

Her current affiliations include membership in Jane Alt’s critique group, enrollment in the Advanced Photo Workshop with Peter Brown at Rice University since 2021, and participation in an ongoing critique group led by Jason Langer.

Through her Photo Forum membership at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts Houston she maintains a vital relationship with the photographic arts community in Texas and beyond. Born in Houston, Texas, Aimee McCrory remains rooted in her hometown.

Directors’ Statement

Aimee McCrory’s project is a photographer riffing on the truth of domestic Joie de vivre: the wonder, reality, sadness, humor.  All fearlessly, beautifully, and skillfully made with a camera held by a lover and life partner expressing, with raw insider’s empathy, the sweetly tangled waltz that is the complicated dance – marriage.

Enough said – the images speak for themselves. The theme is universal.  Profundity wrapped in a wink.

Amanda Smith and Kevin Tully
April, 2024

website: aimeemccrory.com
instagram:  @mccroryae

link to online exhibition

The “sanctuary” exhibition juried by Kevin Tully, was in the online gallery from March 1 to April 11, 2024.  Kevin selected fifty five images from forty four artist. Lev L Spiro’s image “The Secret” received the Juror’s Award. Melina Meza’s image “True Nature” received the Director’s Award.

link to online exhibition

The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions.  Carol Eisenberg’s  image “Fictive Landscapes 08“ received the Juror’s Award in the “landscape” exhibition juried by Kevin Tully.  Carol’s exhibition “Fictive Landscapes” was featured from March 1 to March 31 , 2024 and is discussed in our GalleryTalk with Carol.

Artist Statement

I create constructed digital images that blur the line between painting and photography. This duality of aesthetics is an essential component of my approach to art and life. I am drawn to the polarities of beauty and decay, the contrived and the natural, the excessive and the elegant.

My compositions begin with originally sourced imagery selected from photographs I shoot in my studio or on location near my homes in Maine and Tel Aviv and on my extensive travels. As an active participant in the feminist movement of the 1970s, principles of inclusion, equality, and justice underlie my work in the breadth of source material and the embrace of beauty in all its forms.

The images exist in an abstract realm that unites intentional creation with a fluid, intuitive approach to composition and color. Fusing fragments of natural materials—trees, leaves, branches, flowers, and underwater forms—with images of graffiti and urban detritus, they conjure a mythic idyll in which the ethereal beauties of the natural and made worlds exist in harmony.

Carol Eisenberg, 2023

Bio

Carol Eisenberg has been a practicing photographer since the 1990s. She received her MFA in Media Arts and Photography from Maine Media College, Rockport, ME. Her work is in public and private collections nationwide and has been featured in Décor Maine, Maine Arts Journal, Portland Press Herald, LensCulture, and other publications. It has been exhibited at the Maine Jewish Museum, Portland, ME; LC Bates Museum, Fairfield, ME; and the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA. Eisenberg is represented by Carver Hill Gallery, Camden, ME; Susan Spiritus Gallery, Irvine, CA; and MMPA Gallery, Portland, ME. Her work has also been shown at A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX; Cove Street Arts, Portland, ME; Grant Wahlquist Gallery, Portland, ME; Southeast Center for Photography, Greenville, SC; Photo Place Gallery, Middlebury, VT; New York Center for Photographic Art, New York, NY; Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Denver, CO; and Center for Photographic Arts, Carmel, CA.

website: caroleisenberg.com
instagram: @carol_eisenberg

link to online exhibition

The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions.  Cathy Spence’s image “Bayou #1“ received the Director’s Award in the “water” exhibition juried by Elizabeth Avedon.  Cathy’s exhibition “Liminal” is discussed in this GalleryTalk.

Artist Statement

In the beginning, I set out to create my own Edward Steichen’s 1904 pictorial The Pond ­­– Moonrise described by art critic Charles Caffin as “…the penumbra between the clear visibility of things and their total extinction into darkness.” Liminal captures moments of transition – just before daylight, almost winter, edge of spring; and the mirage of fog.

Most of my time was spent in the marshes where the air is wet and thick, and the horizons are long and thin, broken mostly by tall pines or squat willows. Eventually, I began to take note of the constant struggle between the sun and the fog to illuminate and obscure the landscape.

Cathy Spence, 2023

Bio

Cathy Spence is a fine art photographer living and working in Beaumont, Texas. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Lamar University.  Cathy has photographs in the Wittliff Collection of Southwestern and Mexican Photography, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin. She was awarded the Houston Center of Photography Fellowship in 1998. Her work has been included in group shows: “Fotofest: New Discoveries,” PDNB Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 1998; “Will Power” Rudolph Poissant Gallery, Houston, Texas, 1998; “Nude,” PDNB Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 1999; “Braun, Francois, Spence, King,” Stephen L. Clark Gallery, Austin, Texas, 2001; and the traveling exhibition “Inside/Outside,” which showcased ten Texas women photographers selected by Anne Tucker, former curator of photography at MFAH. Her solo exhibitions “Saints and Satyrs” appeared at the Art Studio, Beaumont, Texas, 2000; and Stephen L. Clark Gallery, Austin, Texas, 2003; “Crooked Eye” at the Art Studio, 2020; and “Liminal” at the Dishman Art Museum, Beaumont, Texas, 2023.

website:  cathyspencefineartphotographs.com
instagram:  @cspence.art

link to online exhibition

The Photographic Performance was created to feature the works of artist with completed bodies of work and a strong narrative. Michael Prais’ exhibition “Out of Context“ is the first of four performances to be exhibited during 2024.  Michael’s exhibition is discussed in this GalleryTalk.

Artist Statement

The reassembly of the photographs figuratively illustrates that photographs are immediately and forever taken out of context. As much as resemblance is heralded as reality, photographs are disconnected from the reality that we take them to be. Reassembly challenges viewers to consider photographs without the resemblance and the composition that are central to the Modernist conception of photography. Reassembly is digital post-processing that challenges Modernist values by producing a self-collage that signals, as collages did a century ago, an expected, disturbing reality and by producing an (oxymoronic) non-representational photograph.

Photographs of scenes with arrangements of deteriorating objects are reassembled to ask viewers to consider how photographs function without their chief characteristic: resemblance. Reassembling photographs takes constituent blocks out of context while each and every piece of the photograph remains visible and each piece–and the whole–remains a photograph. Repetition of the frame repeatedly illustrates that photographs are taken out of context.

Loss of context of any block creates graphical discontinuities at each of its edges that point to precipitous loss after a finite length, time, or life. These rectangles are metaphors for our finite lives. As the original structure is hidden in and by the overall chaotic appearance of the distorted image, this treatment suggests a loss of usefulness and value and perhaps our progression away from a more structured life and toward chaos.

Reassembly could be pushed to the level of pixels to create chaos, but small regions of each photographs remain recognizable so that one can recognize the deterioration and loss captured in my first type of photograph. Abandoned and deteriorating objects in these photographs and the reassembled photographs of them are also metaphors for our lives. I believe that I will not have an afterlife. This project helps me, and perhaps viewers, deal with our ultimate concern.

Michael Prais, 2023

Bio

Michael G. Prais grew up in suburban Dearborn, Michigan, (the home of the Ford Motor Company) during the post-WWII heyday of the auto industry. He studied chemistry, physics and mathematics at the University of Chicago and received a doctorate from UCSD analyzing the distribution of vibrations in mathematical models of the surfaces of crystals.

While teaching chemistry and becoming tenured at Roosevelt University in Chicago, his background in teaching and in large-scale calculations drew him into supporting modern information and communication technologies in the service of education.

As a visual person who moved easily between the concrete and the abstract, Michael has always been interested in how both concrete and abstract tools worked. He is particularly interested in explanation and mechanism. He has always helped and taught others to understand and use abstract tools. He has published the book Photographic Exposure and Camera Operation (ISBN 978-1-4392-0641-6).

A visual explorer, he has always been stimulated by the juxtaposition of the organic and the designed and explores both human constructions in nature and nature and the coincidental in the midst of structure. Michael now uses photography to examine how random acts create structure. His current project, Out of Context, examines the concepts of resemblance, reassembly and recognition in photography and the concept that all photographs are taken out of context in an upcoming book of images and ideas.

Directors’ Statement

Michael Prais was selected as one of the four winners in our “Photographic Performance” call for entry. The combination of his Artist statement and images was immediately compelling to us. The deconstruction of the images, illuminated and quickened by the explanation of his intention, gave absolute voice to the constant admonition in our calls, “Creativity Is Encouraged.”

The combination of the psychological and the technical nudges and cajoles various responses from us, the viewer. His images are like metaphorical train wrecks, we can’t look away.

We thank Michael for inviting us into his world.

Amanda Smith and Kevin Tully
March, 2024

website: michaelprais.me
instagram:  @michaelprais

link to online exhibition

link to exhibition catalogue

The “interiors” exhibition juried by Ann Mitchell, was in the online gallery from January 19 to February 29, 2024.  Ann selected fifty five images from forty six artist. Abbey Hepner’s image “The House is Just a Metaphor” received the Juror’s Award. Ron Butler’s image “somebody see you up there” received the Director’s Award.

—oOOOo—

Special apology to Dan McCormack. YouTube child protection policy did not like the posting of his image on our video. So…. here is his image “Elizabeth  P 02-03-18–10AE”:

Dan also included a statement about his image:

“My image “Elizabeth_P_02-03-18–10AE” was shot with one of my Quaker Oats home made pinhole cameras. The camera holds 8×10” B&W film and requires a two minute exposure. This explains the movement in her fingers and slight blur in her face.  That day in February of 2018, we made 15 exposures in different parts of her house. Elizabeth is an established photographer living in the same town as I do. She is also an accomplished harp player. I had asked Elizabeth to pose for me because it was a way for me to work with and get to know another successful photographer. I like this image because of the bright natural light from the window behind her and on the other her other side is her robe on the door.”  Dan McCormick, February, 2024

—oOOOo—

Juror’s Statement

I am enthralled by interiors – whether they are literal or implied. It’s a word that exists in partnership with its opposite – and that resistance, that separation, is part of what gives it strength and power. We all live interior lives in exterior-facing structures and throughout life we find ourselves sliding somewhere along the space between those two points. These images tell the story of how we live, who we are and what we construct around us.

Concerning Abbey Hepner’s Juror Award image “The House is Just a Metaphor”:
While there were so many powerful images in this group – I was immediately struck by the intentionality, the move from observational into performance, by the artist. I was also struck by the choice of aligned placement along the wall – almost like an echo of Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia, floating in this empty suburban room.

Ann Mitchell
January, 2024

link to online exhibition

The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions.  Walter Plotnick’s image “Limerick“ received the Director’s Award in the “portal” exhibition juried by Crista Dix.  Walter’s exhibition “Surprise Inside” is discussed in this GalleryTalk.

Artist Statement

As a child I was fascinated by single-serve cereal boxes, you would open the box along the perforated long side, pour in the milk and eat out of the open box. It was the folded mechanics of the box I was interested in. Fast forward many years later to my Surprise Inside Series…

My photographic collages serve as a metaphor for anticipation, those moments when the unknown is being revealed.

The implied act of opening the boxes, releases the occupants, allowing them to take flight. The people and objects confined within, through the simple act of unfolding, are exposed revealing what was previously hidden.

I try to convey excitement, and energy in images that are playful, expressive, and nostalgically bring the viewer back to the joyful moments of anticipation felt in childhood.

The sense of nostalgia evoked in the graphic synthesis of these images is augmented using a wash of warm sepia tones that permeate the images. There is also a visual correlation between inhabitants of the boxes and the boxes themselves. The folds of the boxes having a quality not unlike origami, is reflected in the contortionist-like bending of the human forms within.

The unusual and dissimilar combination of people and cardboard boxes is visually unified through the repetition of angles. Despite pairing such disparate elements, I bring them together harmoniously to form images with visual impact, and are frankly, fun to look at.

Walter Plotnick, 2023

Bio

Mr. Plotnick is a USA photo-based artist who lives and works in the Philadelphia, PA area. He received his MFA from University of the Arts and BFA from Tyler School of Art.  Mr. Plotnick is a Senior Lecturer in the Fine Arts Department at Penn State University/Abington.

website: walterplotnick.com
instagram:  @walter_plotnick

link to online exhibition

The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions.  Megan Hatch’s image “A Ladder to the Sky“ received the Juror’s Award in the “common objects” exhibition juried by Doug Beasley.  Megan’s exhibition “Here we be” was featured from February 1 to February 29 , 2024 and is discussed in our GalleryTalk with Megan.

Artist Statement

According to the Oxford English dictionary, hope can be defined as “a feeling of trust.” In the past, I’ve described hope as my superpower. It’s a sinewy hope we’re talking about: I grew up rural, queer, and too quiet about what hurt. Now I’m finding that sometimes you have to leave hope behind. For instance, I will never carry a child in my body. I feel betrayed, not by my body, but by hope. How can you give up and carry on at the same time? As I started exploring this question, I found myself working with images that quite unexpectedly reminded me of the months after my mother passed.

It turns out that the heart of my question and of this body of work is grieving. In my experience, grieving is the way in which you find yourself anew in a place that is also radically altered. Getting there often involves looking for a way out, looking for the thing you lost, and/or just lying on the floor weeping because the pull of gravity is too much. You come undone, and pass through days like a ghost. In this permeable state, you also start to feel how the world keeps reaching out to you. That reaching? That, to me, is hope. It is the world reminding me that I am a part of it, and it is a part of me.

So this is the answer to my question: hope doesn’t come from within me and it exists independent of any outcome. It is in the letting go and the carrying on. My mother wrote a haiku, only one line of which I can now remember: “Death gives rise to wings.” What I think she was talking about is the way that letting go allows us to rise to meet the present. This is the moment that will see us through, not all the ones that came before or any possibility of one to come. My mom was pretty sinewy too.

Sometimes the present moment is a hard one. As I complete this work, things that we hoped for and even saw manifest are being taken away—bodily autonomy, trans & queer rights, affirmative action. I will continue to hope that we will find our way, not in spite of the grief I feel, but with it.

Megan Hatch, 2023

Bio

Megan Hatch (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator living in Portland, Oregon. She is a recent recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers (2023),
and a Critical Mass Finalist (2022). Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in collections both private and corporate.

I’ve loved making art my entire life. As a budding photographer, the tool I had at hand was a disposable camera and I waited with breathless anticipation for the prints to show up in the mail. I
eventually graduated to a film camera, and my hands still remember the satisfying click of the shutter release. Today I work in a digital format and the childhood thrill remains.

Regardless of medium or discipline, the arts are powerful. The joy I experience as an artist is why I’m here today; it’s seen me through. After earning a BA in Studio Art from Carleton College, I
have spent many years creating work, teaching art in communal spaces, and curating exhibitions in sometimes nontraditional environments. My experiences of growing up rural, working class, and queer created a deep desire to help make the arts accessible to a broader range of folks than typically find themselves, or at least comfortably so, in mainstream spaces.

I can’t not make art. I know, deep down, that art is essential to our collective thriving. It’s how we’re going to find our way.

website: meganhatch.com
instagram: @meganhatch_arts

link to online exhibition

The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions.  Lisa Cassell-Arms’ image “Between Heaven and Earth 2“ received the Director’s Award in the “open/unfiltered” exhibition juried by Kevin Tully.  Lisa’s exhibition “Merged Landscapes: New Lands” is discussed in this GalleryTalk.

Artist Statement

During the pandemic I rediscovered a collection of antique stereoscope cards that had belonged to my great-grandfather. I had always been fascinated by them. Long and horizontal in format, two images appear side by side, merged in the center. They often depict exotic locations, captured from slightly different angles, suggesting an edit, or slight glitch in time. When viewed through a stereoscope viewer, they appear three dimensional. For me during that time, they provided a momentary escape to a far away place. Inspired by those images, and searching for a way to stay sane and creative, I took a deep dive into my photographic archives. Looking at images that spanned decades gave me a comforting sense of continuity and hope.

In my resulting series, Merged Landscapes: New Lands, I pair and combine two landscapes into a single merged image. The landscapes are distant from one another on the globe, and separated by time. I tone and texture them to recall the aged quality of stereo-cards, hinting at the enigmatic and slightly unreal nature that I’ve loved about those early, mysterious images. Pairs may share some commonality, perhaps in form, topography or mood. Some may be analogs to one another, merged back to back as if in mirror image. Placed together, they enter into a conversation. A visual dialogue between shapes and shadows that suggests a new and hybrid land, an alternate history to be discovered.

Lisa Cassell-Arms, January, 2024

Bio

Lisa Cassell-Arms is a fine art photographer focused on capturing the magic and beauty of the natural world and our changing relationship with it. By combining and merging images that are different, across time and location, she reinterprets landscape and explores our perceptions of natural space. Lisa discovered her love of photography as a young teenager. An early Polaroid camera and the complete Time-Life Library of Photography provided a great early education in the mechanics, principles and history of photography.

After graduating with a degree in Film from New York University, Lisa worked in television advertising production and film rights acquisitions. Lisa segued into culinary arts, cooking and recipe development which led to food photography and the publication of a cookbook, Seasons in a Vermont Vineyard, Arcadia Publishing.

Lisa has studied at the International Center for Photography and participated in the Atelier and education through the Griffin Museum, Maine Media workshops and Santa Fe Workshops. Her fine art and editorial work has been exhibited in galleries, appeared in print and online. Lisa lives in beautiful Vermont with her husband and silver Labrador.

website:  lisacassellarms.com
instagram:  lisacassellarms

link to online exhibition