“The River Will Be A Part of Us” by Justus Wayne Thomas | GalleryTalk
The Photographic Performance was created to feature the works of artist with completed bodies of work and a strong narrative. Justus Wayne Thomas’ book and exhibition “The River Will Be A Part of Us“ was part of the 2023 Photographic Performance. Wayne’s exhibition and book is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
It would be the summer of Princess Diana’s wedding. The Space Shuttle had just completed its first mission, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was running in theaters. Hand-held mobile phones were years away, and no one had ever heard of the internet. In late June of 1981, a crew of young people from the United States and Europe gathered at a small park on the banks of the Missouri River just outside Kansas City.
The month before, I had been at home in Nashville when I got a call from Tom Bates. We had become friends a few years before as American exchange students at the University of Regensburg in West Germany. Tom asked if I was interested in joining him and some other friends at a campsite near Kansas City, where they planned to build a raft and float down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans.
Tom said he wanted an “expedition photographer.”.
A commitment like this would require money that I did not have, so I asked my parents. My mom was hesitant, but my dad said:
“He’s going. If I have to carry him up to Kansas City on my back, he’s going.”
I took a plane instead and brought my Nikon FE SLR and a supply of Kodak Ektachrome color slide film with me.
In ten days, we built a 16 x 24-foot raft from cottonwood, assorted lumber, and thirty-two 55-gallon oil drums. The “Eulenspiegel” was motorless, moving downriver with the current, maneuvered only by four 10-foot-long deck-mounted oars. In two months, we floated 1,420 miles down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans.
This Fall, Daylight Books is publishing “The River Will Be a Part of Us,” my documentary photobook featuring photographs I captured during the Eulenspiegel’s journey downriver 43 years ago. “The River Will Be a Part of Us” was featured in the 2024 “ICP Photobook Fest” at the International Center of Photography in New York City and at this year’s “SlowExposures” Photobook Fair in Zebulon, Georgia.
Justus Wayne Thomas
Bio
Justus Wayne Thomas is a resident of Nashville and a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee College of Law.
His experience as a photographer began in earnest as an exchange student at the University of Regensburg in West Germany, participating in Vanderbilt’s “Junior Year Abroad” program in 1978-79. Thomas brought his parents’ Minolta SR-T 201 SLR with him and, upon arrival in Regensburg, found a fully equipped, closet-sized darkroom in his dormitory’s basement.
During his Senior Year at Vanderbilt, The Gallery at The Parthenon in Nashville hosted a solo exhibition of photographs Thomas had made in Regensburg. The exhibition was titled “A Nashvillian’s Perspective on Regensburg.” Later that year, The Sarratt Gallery at Vanderbilt University hosted a solo exhibition of photographs Thomas had taken in and around Nashville. That exhibition was titled “Some Relatively Minor Features.”
Thomas’ informal photographic education began as a lab technician at Image Custom Lab in Nashville, a black-and-white custom film and print lab owned and run by Jimmy Ellis, a photojournalist, then recently retired from The Nashville Tennessean.
Thomas’ work has hung in galleries around the country, including The SE Center for Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, A Smith Gallery, Si Gallery (Dab Art Co., Austin, Texas), Yeiser Art Center (Paducah, Kentucky), Center for Contemporary Art (Abilene, Texas), University of Texas, San Antonio (Fotoseptiembre Festival), and Clara M. Eagle Gallery (Murray State University).
website: ambientshadow.net
instagram: wayne4845