Fine Art Photography

Daylight is ebbing again, as the evening air cools.

Autumn’s approach is brightened by two important exhibitions and the steady construction of my home in Bristol, Vermont.

This year’s Art at the Kent exhibition, Holding, Mementos Kept, Memories Kindled, opens on Friday, September 12, with a celebration on Saturday, the 13th. I am thrilled to have a variety of images in the extensive group show. Large darkroom prints of single frames and inkjet prints of Contact Grids from “My Father’s Things” will be included along with a selection of hand-applied silver emulsion prints from the “(Re)Membering” series.

On Friday, September 19, from 2-3pm, I will give a Gallery Talk in the rooms of the historic Kent Museum, and on Tuesday, September 23, from 6:30-8:30pm, I’ll join other showing artists for “Inspired,” an evening of brief slideshow presentations at the nearby Maple Corner Community Center. The exhibition’s closing celebration will be on Sunday, October 12, from 3-5pm.

Many thanks to curators Nel, Allyson, and David.

I am honored to be part of the Burlington City Arts Center exhibition, Do We Say Goodbye? Grief, Loss, and Mourning, which opens on September 26, and for which I created contact grids about my mother from photographs of her possessions, infused with her own words.

Linda Douglas, born Henny Haar, was a Holocaust survivor. Although she had a deep appreciation for her life and the beauty of the world, she grappled with grief and sadness. In these multi-framed images, I wanted to express both my mother’s weighty darkness and her efforts to rise above the pain.

The grid above begins with her poem, “Songs to Remember,” a reflection of her childhood losses, and ends with the official post-war notice of her father’s death at Auschwitz. She and her courageous mother managed to escape capture and hide in Berlin through the bombing and liberation. I discovered the yellow cloth Star of David among her personal notes, a powerful relic that I had never seen. She was shy about her history and seldom shared details about the war.

My mother died in December 2022, and in gathering and photographing her things, I gained increased empathy for her struggles as well as a fuller awareness of how her traumas were planted in my emotional landscape.

Thanks to curators Heather Ferrell and Jacquie O’Brien for the opportunity to create a new series of contact grids and bring my mother’s story to light.

The October issue of Black & White Magazine features a Portfolio Spotlight of the “(Re)membering” Series, which includes several images and a brief essay about the body of work for which I photograph anonymous vintage portraits and print the new negatives on watercolor paper hand-coated with silver emulsion.

The image above was created after my favorite antique ambrotype was dropped and shattered. Ambrotypes are one-of-a-kind photographs exposed directly on glass that were typically either backed with black velvet to fill in the shadows or produced on black-painted glass. This beauty was made on a 2-inch dark red glass plate, unlike any I have ever seen. I collected the tiny shards and photographed the re-assembled portrait with a macro lens. She lives again, a testament both to the fragility of the medium and to its power of persistence.

Click THIS LINK to view the B&W Magazine spread.

Gratitude to Art Director Dean Brierly and writer Michael DiGregorio for their kind tribute!

SPOTLIGHT: Rachel Portesi

As guest curator for the first of two visiting artist exhibitions at Saint Michael’s College this fall, I am delighted to present Rachel Portesi. The Nature of Things opens at the McCarthy Art Gallery on Thursday, September 18, with an artist talk at 5pm, followed by a reception.

I became aware of Rachel Portesi’s expressive work at an exhibition at the AVA Gallery in Lebanon, New Hampshire last year. She refers to herself as a lens-based multimedia artist. With photography at center, she uses both antique methods and new technologies to speak to issues such as identity, gender, mothering, and aging. Portesi’s “Hair Portraits” encompassed hand-made tintypes presented within beautiful cases and frames, alongside installations of vintage cameras and suitcases embedded with video.

With The Nature of Things exhibition, Portesi explores mushrooms as symbols of mortality, regeneration, and interconnectedness. She will have a selection of tintypes (an early photographic process that produces direct positives on metal plates), large digital prints from her tintypes, videos of time-lapse imagery altered with AI, and the actual specimens of her studies: the fungi. I can’t wait to see it all come together.

Click on the poster above to link to the event, open to the public. I hope to see you there!

Visit Rachel Portesi’s website: HERE

EXHIBITIONS

Burlington’s South End Art Hop

BCA Studios

405 Pine St.

September 5-30, 2025

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“Holding, Mementos Kept, Memories Kindled”

Art at the Kent

Calais, Vermont

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“Do We Say Goodbye? Grief, Mourning and Loss”

BCA Center

135 Church St, Burlington, Vt.

September 26, 2025 - January 24, 2026

PRINTS FOR SALE

Visit the website Store Page for sale prints. For questions, comments, or to inquire about any images: jordan@jordandouglasphotography.com

IN THE VIEWFINDER

After several months of creating and framing for the Kent and BCA shows, I am looking forward to experiencing the work on the gallery walls. Both bodies of photography have been emotionally stirring, and though I have more pieces within each series that I intend to pursue, I will take a breather and work on framing my house and teaching my class. Soon, I’ll get back to shooting “Basin St. Things,” as I continue to find curious objects at my property. In the meantime, I need to update my website.

Until the next missive, happy autumn!

Previous Newsletters:

June, 2025

March, 2025

November, 2024

August, 2024

June, 2024

March, 2024

January, 2024

November, 2023

October, 2023

September, 2023

August, 2023

July, 2023

June, 2023