A collection of 35 photographs that tell stories, imbue emotion, and create atmosphere can be seen at the Rye Arts Center as part of The Ground Glass’s 48th Annual Juried Exhibit.
“The final selection was really based on the visual impact,” said Debra Klomp Ching, co-founder and director of the Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn and juror of The Ground Glass’s exhibit showing through April 30. “Excellence in the use of composition, where color was utilized, how the color worked, where light was a significant element of the photograph, then looking at the strength of the use of that as well.”
One of the photographers featured in the show, Arnold Kastenbaum, who teaches a continuing education photography class at Purchase College, has been developing film for 55 years. His expertise allows him to selectively expose his photos, resulting in highly contrasted, monochrome abstractions of everyday things. A random hotel lamp becomes a mysterious white stripe on a black canvas. A regular staircase is made ominous.
Using a long exposure time and in-camera movement, Patrick J. Cicalo’s, “Chrysler at Night,” depicts the New York City skyscraper as a dreamlike version of itself — what a late-night party-goer might see after one too many. Set against a obsidian night sky, the photo is building toward the series, 36 views of the Chrysler.
“I’m not quite up to 36 yet, I’m working my way up,” said Cicalo. Other photos focus on docu- menting emotion and psychology, leaning toward the conceptual. Done in a diptych style, Randy Matusow’s works explore her feelings on empty nesting. In “Watching the Grass Grow, No. 27,” the left side of the image shows two little girls in their backyard drinking water from a hose on a hot summer day. One girl spits a stream of water at the photographer, while the other, dressed in a bikini and goggles, laps the water being fed to her by an out-of-frame arm. On the other side of the photo, a lonely, old dog meanders in the same yard where those two little girls once played.
“It’s not about loss, but there’s a loss,” said Matusow, who studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked for decades as a commercial photographer for magazines. “I miss the sort of joyful purpose- fulness of parenthood.”
And while Matusow feels the void in her home, she admits that it has given her more time to be creative; she is scheduled to have a solo show at Soho Photo Gallery in Manhattan, opening May 2.
Sally Harris also has photos documenting the lives of children, but not her own. In 2017, Harris and her husband, Mike Harris, who is also featured at The Ground Glass, took their normal trip to their vacation home in Maryland on the Pennsylvania border. While there, they saw a few Amish children selling goods at a roadside stand. They befriended the children and asked if they could take their photos. The Amish usually shun cameras, but Harris obtained permission. What resulted were dynamic images of children at play, dressed in their button-down shirts and suspenders, bouncing on a trampoline and captured weightless in time.
“That’s the great thing about photography,” said fellow exhibitor, Alison Rodilosso, a Rye resident and chief photographer for The Rye Record. “Everything is so fleeting; everything is always passing us by so quickly and here we just — freeze time.”
In Rodilosso’s, “Wistful Apparition,” a deeply pensive woman is amputated by reflec- tions and seemingly exists in midair like a ghost. What appears to be a whirlwind of her inner thoughts is just a snapshot of magic caught in the real world.
“We’ve always thought of ourselves not so much as a club, but more like a guild,” Joe Carline, president of The Ground Glass. The group also stresses a no-competition environment and instead encourages member feed- back and thoughtfully juried exhibits, as they have done for more than four decades. Established in 1975, The Ground Glass gets its name from an eponymous piece used as a focusing tool in some cameras. The group is made up of about 40 members from Westchester and Fairfield counties. Yearly dues are $150 and include a membership to the Rye Arts Center, work- shops, access to guest speakers, and funds to pay for events and jurors for exhibitions, such as the one now at the Rye Arts Center.
Collectively, the photographers have deep experience, including many who have never been professional photographers. But they have a passion for the art form, spending countless hours and plenty of money on photography over the years.
“Photography is a visual art form, which not only permeates everyone’s lives, but I think that there are many ways in which to appreciate that,” said Klomp Ching.
Most of the group’s members are over 50 and many said their ardor for photography was sparked in their teenage years by an old boyfriend, a neighbor, or a camera given to them as a gift by a parent. For decades they held tight to their love of the craft, and for a limited time, you can witness that love in their photos.
