Weekly Post, SILK ROAD - Embroideries of Robert Glenn Ketchum

Silk Road - Embroideries of Robert Glenn Ketchum

The city of Suzhou, China, produced China's most beautiful silk and silk embroidery practiced by generational families for 3,000 years. My purpose in going to China starting in the mid-1980's was to turn my photographs into textiles, and this is my story. ~Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Silk Road - Embroideries #215

SILK ROAD #215:  In post #199, I teased you with this and explained that my collaborative work with Zhang Meifang and her guild of embroiderers was moving in two directions simultaneously at this time. While “YK Delta from 1500” was been woven on the huge loom created just to make that 4-panel piece (posts #200-215), the above image was being crafted in the embroidery workshop. “YK Delta from 1500” is a weaving that continues to explore the “transparency” of a subject, in that it is a 2-sided weaving, and parts of it bear little or no stitches and are thus, transparent. We have used this “transparency” to render water and sky “space” in many previous pieces, however, we have also spent a great deal of effort on highly detailed and stitch-rich subjects. At first creating them just to accomplish accurately rendering a photograph, but eventually learning to play with various aspects of the stitch design using texture, color, to affect the visual sense of dimensional space. Once Zhang realized how an embroidery can capture the realism in most photographs, both she and I began to enjoy those images where the challenge was increased in some way. From previous work, we both knew this image could be rendered with great detail, but we were curious to see if the illusion of motion could also be represented. Additionally, Zhang felt that if that could be done, it would make the highly rendered details more pronounced and dimensional, so she asked the embroiderers to stitch the forest with GREAT attention to individual branches, leaves, color relations, and textures, to which the blur of motion would be overlain.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2017, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd #Embroidery @WesCFA @RSSDesigns

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Amon Carter Museum, "American Photographs, 1845 to Now”

"TWO POSSIBLE CHOICES FOR THE FUTURE” 1984
photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2016, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd

I would like to thank Assistant Curator of Photographs, Joy Jeehye Kim, PhD, and the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, TX for including the above image in their current exhibit, "American Photographs, 1845 to Now.” These 6-panels of imagery were created during the two years I spent in the Hudson River Valley working on a commission given to Stephen Shore, William Clift, and myself by the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund. Published as the Aperture monograph, “The Hudson River and the Highlands,” I also republished this work in greater length and detail in this blog: The Hudson River and the Highlands

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online:

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Social Media by @LittleBearProd

Amon Carter Museum, "American Photographs, 1845 to Now”

Cont., Silk Road by Robert Glenn Ketchum

Continued,

Silk Road - Embroideries of Robert Glenn Ketchum

The city of Suzhou, China, produced China's most beautiful silk and silk embroidery practiced by generational families for 3,000 years. My purpose in going to China starting in the mid-1980's was to turn my photographs into textiles, and this is my story. ~Robert Glenn Ketchum

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Due to the size and quality of the photos included in this blog, and as too many photos tend to slow a blog down, we have opted to host these previous entries on a separate post in order to best optimize your reading experience. Enjoy! 

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Thursday, May 28, 2015

Silk Road - Embroideries #123

SILK ROAD #123:   So, here are 2-of-the-4 panels of “Emperor Kangxi’s Inspection Tour of Southern China.” What you are looking at is about 10-1/2-feet long, and 2-feet tall; all stitched with human hair! What you saw in previous posts were details from these two panels. Post #120 (of the bridge) can be located in the middle, right of the right-hand panel. Post #122 is in the lower-right of the left-hand panel. As you can see, the detail sections I presented are barely 20% of their overall panel. Now extrapolate those minutiae of stitches across this entire piece: OMG!!! EVEN MORE AMAZINGLY, this “aerial” view is architecturally accurate. In 1986, I could still recognize bridges, historic gates, and walls, and the layout of certain neighborhoods! More than likely, the artist commissioned by the court to create this work in 1689 was in a pagoda tower, or on a hill above the city in order to correctly represent this POV.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2015, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd #Embroidery @WesCFA @RSSDesigns

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Order From Chaos by Robert Glenn Ketchum

While studying photography with two very untraditional photographers, Edmund Teske and Robert Heinecken at UCLA (1966-1970), I was also shooting rock-and-roll bands on the Sunset Strip and spending long hours in the traditional "wet" darkroom experimenting with many forms of non-traditional printmaking. At the time, I was working mostly in black-and-white. When I added color it was usually by painting or dyeing it in.  SELF PORTRAIT IN A RAINBOW SHIRT / HOMAGE TO JIMI HENDRIX, 1967  Photograph © 2014 Robert Glenn Ketchum  For Display Use Only, No Permission to Reproduce in Any Form

Upcoming Shows Featuring Robert Glenn Ketchum

I will celebrate a birthday on December 1st and one of my presents is that a number of institutions are looking back over the last 40-years and recognizing artists and bodies of their work that broadened the conceptual dialogue around photography, and COLOR photography in particular.  On December 15th, the ORANGE COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART will open the exhibition, "Landscape Into Abstraction", (December 15, 2013 -March 9, 2014) a selection of paintings and photographs from the permanent collection that reflect that transition in artistic concept.

Robert Glenn Ketchum: 'WINTERS 1970-1980'

Thanks to the Getty and over 60 participating regional museums and galleries, during the last five months an astounding series of exhibitions were installed throughout the Los Angeles area under the encompassing banner, PACIFIC STANDARD TIME.  The concept of these collective exhibits was to articulate the importance of those artists who have practiced in Los Angeles since 1945.  Their unique perspectives have come to define the diverse artistic culture of LA and bring about the birth of the LA art scene.

The G2 Gallery Exhibit - Nature L.A.: Robert Glenn Ketchum

The G2 Gallery 

1503 Abbott Kinney Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

~ presents ~ 

"Nature LA:  Robert Glenn Ketchum"

March 29, 2011 - April 24, 2011

From March 29th to April 24th, The G2 Gallery in Venice is going to exhibit some very interesting aspects of my work, a seldom-viewed embroidery, and 18-panels of a repeating leaf motif that is part of my new experimentation in the digital darkroom.

 

FOTOfusion 2011 and New Website Launch of Robert Glenn Ketchum

FOTOfusion®2011 Palm Beach Photographic Center January 11-15, 2011 PHOTOGRAPH, "OCTOBER 24 1983 / 2:10 p.m.", 1983 In 2010, American Photo magazine featured Robert Glenn Ketchum in their Masters series making him only the fifth photographer they have recognized this way in 20-years of publishing. Of the five honored, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and Annie Liebovitz, Ketchum is unique because his imagery is based almost exclusively in the natural world. For 45-years Ketchum's fine prints, and bookmaking, have addressed critical national environmental issues while at the same time helped to define contemporary color photography. His advocate use of photographs and the media has inspired successive generations of artists to work on behalf of social and environmental justice, and led to the creation of the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP), of which Ketchum is a Founding Fellow. It has also resulted in Audubon naming Ketchum one of the 100 people "who shaped the conservation movement of the 20th Century." Ketchum has been a longtime friend of The Palm Beach Photographic Centre, and so it is with great pleasure that the Centre will acknowledge this designation from American Photo magazine by hosting a retrospective exhibit of Ketchum's career, January 2-April 3, 2010. The exhibit is timed to open during , a weeklong celebration of photography that the Centre has been hosting for twenty years. EMBROIDERY, "YK DELTA FROM 1,500", 2003 While an undergraduate at UCLA in the mid-1960's Ketchum studied with Edmund Teske, Robert Heinecken and Robert Fichter, three very groundbreaking, non-traditional image-makers. Their influence clearly defines a whole other aspect to Ketchum's work far more experimental than those images he has produced on behalf of conservation. In the early '80's, Ketchum entered China through the UCLA-China Exchange Program, and began to collaborate with some of the historic embroidery guilds of Suzhou to develop complex textiles based on his photographs. Some of the most recent examples of this embroidery and loom weaving, many of which took years to complete, will be included in this exhibit, as will new designs from the digital darkroom that Ketchum has recently developed for the embroiderers. Ketchum's distinctive, dimensional prints are in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the National Museum of American Art (DC), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY). Significant archives (more than 100 images) have been acquired by the Amon Carter Museum (TX) and the Huntington Library and Gardens (CA), and substantial bodies of work can be found at the High Museum (GA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Akron Art Museum (OH), Stanford University Art Museum (CA), the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Cornell University (NY), and the National Museum of American Art. PHOTOGRAPHIC PANELS, "CHOOSE JOY", 2007 It is seldom that The Centre has the opportunity to feature a photographer that embraces such a diverse approach to photographic image making. In appreciation of Ketchum's long friendship with PBPC and his well-earned reputation as an inspiring teacher, during FOTOfusion The Centre will present Ketchum with their annual Mentors Award. In turn, Ketchum will honor a relatively unknown photographer with the Rising Star Award. Ketchum has selected Miguel Ángel de la Cueva, a young Fellow from the International League of Conservation Photographers who is doing remarkable work in Mexico and Baja. Ketchum would also like iLCP photographers to become regular attendees and contributors to FOTOfusion, so he is introducing several iLCP Fellows at this year's festival and they will be lecturing, exhibiting, and signing recent books. Get out of the cold of winter. Come to FOTOfusion in West Palm Beach, take in a little sun... and some great photography!

One final bit of news is that my social media team and I have spent the past few months redesigning my website and today it's finally ready to be revealed! A couple of things I like most about my new site are that while it showcases my art nicely, it also coordinates my social media network, and even has video capability!  In addition, my new site now hosts an online store... just in time for the holidays. It would mean the world to me if you'd stop by the new site at some point and check it out:  www.robertglennketchum.com. Sincerely, Robert Glenn Ketchum