Entry #2: BPAC Artist-in-Residence Visit #6, September 24, 2013

Dear Nancy,

I arrived back in Buffalo yesterday after spending the weekend in Santa Fe at an event my publisher held for artists they've published.

As I shared with you on Friday before the gala, I was concerned about my ability to reconnect to my AIR project, especially following a (much-needed) two-month break. After my Santa Fe->ABQ->LAX->-DC->Buffalo flights, carrying bags of great new Radius Books, I was even more skeptical. I was not looking forward to picking up my 8x10 camera and all of its accoutrements. But the afternoon light was warm and pacifying, and there were offerings of color as I drove from my hotel to the Charles Burchfield Nature and Art Center. I parked, left the camera in the car so I could go unencumbered to greet the landscape after so long. To my great surprise, within two minutes and twenty meters, I was seeing again: a cluster of young trees growing, surely sharing the same roots. I studied it, challenged myself--is this a true connection?--kept walking, and within a minute, saw another image, and then another one. I got my camera and spent the next three hours making three new pictures.

Thank you, as always, for listening so well to me. Your openness and genuine interest allows me to speak candidly with you, and to work through the doubts and concerns that might otherwise become impediments to my process. What else enabled me to see so easily? Barbara Bosworth's new book that I kept on my lap as I flew across the country, Natural Histories. Color and black and white images taken over twenty years in the landscape of Bosworth's youth, including several of fireflies! http://barbarabosworth.com

I have a copy to show you.

Warmly,
Janelle

Janelle Lynch is the 2013 Burchfield resident artist. She has garnered international recognition over the last decade for her large-format photographs of the urban and rural landscape. Widely exhibited, her work is in several public and private collections including the Burchfield Penney, George Eastman House Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Newark Museum, the Fundación Vila Casas, Barcelona, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Salta, Argentina.