June, 2025 Newsletter

Fine Art Photography

June, 2025

I welcome the long days of summer

With two exhibitions in the fall, I am shooting and printing whenever possible, around preparations for building my home.

My Father’s Things, Create Clock

16x20-inch Silver Gelatin Print, 2025

I am thrilled to be included in the Art at the Kent exhibition, “Holding: Mementos Kept, Memories Kindled,” which opens on September 12. I am printing a series of single frames from rolls of “My Father’s Things” to be exhibited along with several Contact Grids.

Much of my photography relates to this year’s theme, and the wonderful curators have been open to showing work from various projects.

The image below is a picture of my father in 1937 beneath his cremated ashes that I photographed in September 2023.

My Father as a Baby With His Own Ashes

Hand Applied Silver Gelatin Print, Toned in Sepia, 2024

To view a brief YouTube Video about photographing my father’s ashes, click HERE.

I am delighted to be part of the Burlington City Arts Center exhibition, “How to Say Goodbye: Grief, Loss, and Mourning,” which opens on September 26. I am creating Contact Grids about my mother, whose life was steeped in sorrow. She was a Holocaust survivor, who lost her father to Auschwitz, and managed to hide in Berlin with her strong and resourceful mother, before immigrating to America in 1947. She died in Vermont in December 2022, a month before her 90th birthday.

Things of My Mother, Contact Grid #4

Digital crop from a scanned analog contact sheet

The grid above revolves around early memories of my mom, in Yorktown Heights, NY, before the divorce. The pin cushion symbolizes how she felt stuck in the house with three young children; the drawing is a portrait by my father that encapsulates my sullen and aloof mother; her Haiku in the bottom frame reads “Pebbles in the past, like the sorrows in my heart, sink deep out of sight”; and, the LP records in the bottom right is the music she played in the living room–where she stands in the first frame, where I sat on the floor playing with blocks absorbing the sounds along with her sadness.

Poring over her possessions, reading her poetry and diary entries, and reflecting on her remarkable life has been cathartic and has deepened feelings of compassion for my pained mother.

Civil War Era Tintype

11x14-inch Silver Gelatin Print on Handmade Cotton Paper, Toned in Sepia, 2018

Black & White Magazine will feature a Portfolio Spotlight of my (Re)membering Series in the October issue. The spread will include several images from 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 printed on paper I made from cotton pulp in a workshop with the incredible Peace Paper Project in 2018. The original metal photograph had been folded such that the collodion emulsion had been worn off on a diagonal line. Tintypes were often how corpses of Civil War soldiers were identified. Here, the missing emulsion decapitates the subject–an invocation of his mortality and of the fragility of the medium with its grasp on memory.

It’s an honor to be recognized by B&W Magazine!

My property in Bristol, Vermont is cleared and ready for building. My permits are in place, I have a plan for a small house with a walk out basement, and if all goes well, the foundation work will begin at the end of July. I am nervously excited as my dream of creating a home draws nearer.

Basin St. Things, Contact Quad #11

8x10-inch Archival Pigment Print, 2025

Each time I work at Basin Street, picking up trash, moving rocks, and pulling weeds, I find quirky objects–vestiges of the people who once lived there. Above is a recent Contact Grid, from the 6 rolls of objects I’ve shot thus far. “Basin St. Things” continues to grow!

EXHIBITIONS

“Sharpen Your Pencils” at Studio Place Arts

Barre, VT

June 25 - August 15, 2025

Reception: Saturday, July 5, 4:30-6pm

My Father’s Things, Pencil Sharpeners 1

16x20-inch Silver Gelatin Print, 2025

The image above, along with a large cherry wood-framed darkroom print of “My Father’s Things, Pencils 1” will be part of the SPA group show.

…..

“Stains” at the Museum of Everyday Life

Glover, Vermont

Through July, 2026

Gavin’s Walls Triptych

Three 8.5x11-inch Archival Pigment Prints, 2024

(Phone image taken at the reception on May 31)

My piece above was created for the Museum of Everyday Life exhibition, which assesses life’s residues. “Gavin’s Walls Triptych” is a look at my younger brother’s Queens apartment after his fatal heart attack in 2017. His walls were darkened with 20 years of cigarette and marijuana smoke, leaving impressions of the posters and Nascar memorabilia that had decorated his home.

Click HERE to view the images of my 2019 exhibition “Of Gavin”, which pays homage to my brother with a visual study of his possessions.

When you visit the wondrous and nationally recognized M.O.E.L., be sure to explore the permanent collection, where you can see two analog photographs of my father’s house from the 2022 exhibition, “Coming Clean”.

THIS MONTH’S PRINTS FOR SALE

One of each of these specially priced, signed and wrapped prints is available, and can be window-matted for an additional cost. To purchase, click on the image.

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

Central Park, NYC

8x9-inch Silver Gelatin Print, 2014

$125

Shot with a medium format plastic Holga camera.

International

11x14-inch Silver Gelatin Lith Print, 2005

$250

IN THE VIEWFINDER

The next couple of months will be a balancing act of producing and framing photographs for fall exhibitions while working on my house.

I am guest curating the first of two visiting artist fall exhibitions at the McCarthy Art Gallery of Saint Michael’s College. I am very pleased to be bringing photographer Rachel Portesi, whose show “The Nature of Things” will open with an artist talk on September 18. More details in the August newsletter.

Enjoy Summer!

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