WHAT: "Well Red: A Photo-Literary Experiment" by Mavis Miller.
WHEN: Through Feb. 28.
WHERE: Pendragon Theater, 15 Brandy Brook Ave., Saranac Lake.
HOURS: Gallery hours correspond with performance times. See schedule at: www.pendragontheatre.org
PHONE: 891-1854.
SARANAC LAKE — "Well Red: A Photo-Literary Experiment" is a bibliophile's dreamscape by Mavis Miller at the Pendragon Theater Gallery in Saranac Lake.
The Lake Placid artist uses pinhole cameras, film and digital format, to create images that fuse her love of photography and reading.
"I'm really enjoying working with pinhole cameras and plastic-lens cameras," said Miller, who received a bachelor's of fine arts from Plattsburgh State in 2003.
"I've done a lot of work in the past with pinhole images. I like the slightly ethereal quality it gives them. It makes things a little more emotional, a little more dreamy. Some of them give a vintage look. I like that crossing over with a very basic rudimentary concept like the pinhole camera and merging it with the digital prints."
"Sky Tale is the most straight-ahead image. The others — "Worn," "Bind," "Chasing Babar," "Pages" and "Edge Flow" — are an imagistic riff.
In her artist statement, Miller writes:
"I am interested in exploring books as objects. Books are more than just a collection of the words inside them; they are a compilation of textures, images and colors. This exhibition represents my effort to capture and bring life to those images; to create something new that celebrates the old."
SENSE OF MYSTERY
Some of the images are the exterior of books. Others focus on the interior. She takes pictures of the books' text and images and overlays them with other images.
"I create a new life. (In) the pinhole process, you can't see through the lens. I really love that surprise element of it. I like not knowing. Some of the best images are the ones that I didn't know I had at all."
In her statement, she writes:
"My images are intentionally out of focus & ethereal. I use a variety of plastic & pinhole cameras and lenses to create my pictures. These cameras allow me to create a sense of mystery & nostalgia that I don't find in a straight photograph. They allow me to strip objects down to their essence. My images are not intended to be copies of the original; they are just translations of some of my favorite works."
Miller manipulated images by flipping pages.
"Some are 20-second exposures. The longer the exposure "¦ you can get this quality of movement from camera shake or the subject moving."
She prefers film over digital-pinhole images.
"There are pros and cons to each way. Film has more irregularities in it. It's less predictable.
After five years of working at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, she teaches photography, sculpture and drawing at Northwood School in Lake Placid.
"Well Red" is her anti-digital-revolution stance against Ebook readers such as the Amazon Kindle DX, Sony PRS-700 and Barnes & Noble Nook.
"I wanted to celebrate the image of a book as an object in itself," Miller said. "The actual tactile quality of a book is more than just the words it contains. I'm trying to get that otherworldly sense of when you hold a book."
E-mail Robin Caudell at: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
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