Words on Art on Words

Participating in a weekly evolving call and response art exhibition at The Lava Center in Greenfield, MA spurred me to new creative heights.  

From the exhibit's call for art and writing.

As artists, we are creatively stirred by the world around us. We create in response to what we experience, both our lived realities and the works of other artists. In the Words on Art on Words installation, we will observe this responsiveness in real time. Each week, at least 4 new visual or written pieces will be added to the installation wall. The only rule is that visual artists must create in response to an already-displayed piece of writing, and writers must create in response to an already-displayed piece of visual art.

Click to join the fun!

Delivering my piece Elements, created in response to Amie Hyson's poem Choose Not to be Moved

Elements

Choose Not to be Moved by Amie Hyson

Explaining to fellow exhibiting artist Collin Ricketts how the background image is a double exposure of clouds and sun overlaid with a masked image of plants and stone.

Showtime

John Nordell blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

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On Finding Raw Material: Feeding My Multiple Exposure Practice

After a delightful dinner watching the world go by on a lovely spring evening from my front row seat on Newbury Street, I strolled around the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston.

The mysterious funk of this alley prompted me to retrieve my car-bound Nikon mirrorless camera. The view, devoid of nearby shiny modern buildings, felt pregnant with with old-time story and possibility.

Graphically complex scenes like this lure me to capture them with multiple exposures. I snap a frame to check exposure and start the mental calibration of how many exposures might look good.

Like a painter making a sketch before the squeezing paint, I capture a single image of the visual raw material to ready myself for multiple exposure show time.

Around the corner and down Boylston Street, the facade of Dick's House of Sport sported bands of color. I layered exposures of the strips, striving for a Piet Mondrian look and feel.

Satisfied with the above work, I after the fact captured the raw material.

Blaring sirens clued an approaching fire engine. I instinctively crouched down (safely between two parked cars), spun the dial for a slow shutter speed of 1.6 seconds and captured the blur of the passing light festooned vehicle. Hope all were safe.

These outdoor seating restaurant lights proved to be grist for my blending mill.

However, forgetting I had programmed in a slow shutter speed, when I turned my camera upside down for exposures four, five and six, I unintentionally and delightedly created dynamic blurs of light.

Earlier in my explorations, this epigraph that adorns The Boston Public Library's McKim building stopped me in my tracks.

THE COMMONWEALTH REQUIRES THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AS THE SAFEGUARD OF ORDER AND LIBERTY 

Pondering cuts to education and the federally mandated narrowed scope of allowable classroom topics, I struggled to make the profound words legible in a single image.

I am not completely satisfied with this layering of library images as it feels repetitive and derivative of  prior work. However, perhaps it clearly represents struggle and dissatisfaction. Order and Liberty indeed.

John Nordell is a photographer, educator and curator. He blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

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The Pictures Not Shown

Speaking on the phone with a friend while driving to walk on Duxbury Beach I explained that despite the semester's end nearing, I had yet to tell students of my imminent retirement.

"I don't know how to tell them," I exclaimed. 

"Make a sculpture that expresses your feelings and see if they can figure what you are trying to say."

His suggestion got me thinking. Since I had my camera with me, I wrote down a list of the feelings I wanted to express and the endeavored to create visual expressions of the ideas.

Let me know how I did.

I photographed at Duxbury Beach, in The North Hill Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary behind Duxbury's Town Hall and at The Old North Bridge in Concord, MA 

 

It proved a healthy challenge to visual portray the concepts. I reflected that I always assigned my students this very task, to visually communicate ideas without words. It's hard!

While the process became a therapeutic method to grapple with the sadness of the ending and the excitement of a beginning, I ultimately decided that I would not show the images to my students.

1. I was concerned that if they did not figure out what I was trying to say it would be embarrassing for all of us.

2. More importantly, after students presented their final projects, I did not want to make the last moments of class all about me.

My friend Benjamin Swett recently published a book of his essays and photographs: The Picture Not Taken.

I am in the opposite position.

John Nordell is a photographer, educator and curator. He blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: @john.nordell

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Archive Dipping - My 1977 Polaroid "The American West" Published in Pamplemousse Magazine

So excited to be featured along with other Polaroid lovers in the latest issue of Pamplemousse Magazine.

Shot when I was teenager.

The American West, 1977

The Magazine

The Spread

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Arts, Media, and Design Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: john.nordell

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My Environmental Concerns Persist While My Modes of Photographic Expression Have Evolved

My submission for The Vermont Center for Photography Of Land and Place exhibition:

Selling Produce Next to a Superfund Site - 1989

In 1989 I traversed the United States documenting environmental degradation, from injection wells pumping toxic waste deep into the earth to farmers selling produce adjacent to Superfund sites. Chronicling the wounds intensified my concern for our planet. I commenced using a hazardous waste disposal company to remove spent chemicals from my darkroom instead of pouring them down the drain.

Walden Pond - 2019

Thirty years later I created large scale Zentangle drawings by walking deliberately through sand. I then sent a drone aloft to capture the ephemeral works that are only fully viewable from the sky. I piloted the drone from the shores of Walden Pond near Henry David Thoreau’s cabin where he wrote Walden.

Horizons - 2023

While digital photography comes with its own set of negative environmental impacts, discovering that I could intentionally create in-camera multiple exposures with the medium led to a new way of seeing. Whether capturing the interconnected nature of clam harvesters at low tide or utilizing the minimal elements of sea and sky to render the magnificence of the ocean, I overlay multiple views simultaneously to render the essence of subjects.

Ocean Aperture - 2024

Though the environmental concerns persist thirty-five years after my initial reporting, my modes of photographic expression have evolved.

Sea and Sky - 2024

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Arts, Media, and Design Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at johnnordell.com Instagram: john.nordell

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Abstraction Born from Elemental Shapes and Forms: Imprints of a Circuit Board

I love learning. And experimenting with art tools. Perhaps playing is a better term. Found inspiration in a book bequeathed to me by my art loving and collecting parents: Abstract Art by Gerhard Gollwitzer

Abstract Art by Gerhard Gollwitzer

Spheres - Same Shape, Different Sizes

Cylinders - Same Shape, Different Forms

Squeeze in the Sides of a Sphere to Make a Cube

Circuit Board Imprinted on a Flat Piece of Clay Rolled into a Cylinder

Circuit Board - Making Good Use of an Obsolete Computer's Innards

Circuit Board Imprinted on a Flat Piece of Clay 

Crayola Clay - Stale Yet Charming

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Arts, Media, and Design Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com. Instagram: create.look.enjoy

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My Image "Beam Me Up" Chosen for F-Stop Magazine's "Minimal" Themed Group Exhibition

Beam Me Up

I am beaming that my image was included in F-Stop Magazine's Minimal issue. You can find my image if you scroll halfway down the group exhibit. Jazzed to have my work featured along with tightly composed work by photographers from around the world.

Online

Submitted images I love that were not published:

Shishito
I also grew this pepper - shot on iPhone

Intersecting Lives and Lines
DSLR in-camera multiple exposure

Enduring
Shot with a plastic toy film camera 

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Arts, Media, and Design Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com. Instagram: create.look.enjoy

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