emerson

Q&A: Mary Daniel Hobson

#004, from the series Evocations, ©2007

By Dale Conour

Mary Daniel Hobson has been enjoying a personal Renaissance since moving beyond the two dimensions of photography, exploring her interior landscape, and ours, as much as the outer, natural world. We had an email exchange of questions and answers; here’s what they were.

Q: Do you still consider yourself a photographer? Can you see yourself ever returning to "just" taking photographs?

A: Yes, I do still consider myself a photographer. As an artist, photography is where I came from and is a strong component of all of my work. I became captivated with photography at the age of fourteen and spent the first decade of my photographic life working in a traditional black and white darkroom. Eventually, due primarily to my intensive studies of Surrealism, I became interested in expressing more depth and complexity in my work than I could achieve with a straight black and white print. At that point, I began experimenting with mixed media photography – creating layered collages and sculptural pieces. In all of these works, photography remains a crucial, if not the crucial, element.

Recently, I actually have returned to a more straight photographic process. In two new series, Evocations and Sanctuary, the final pieces are flat prints. Both series involve the creation of intricate still lives, which are then photographed. For example, in Sanctuary, I start by photographing a spot in nature I consider to be refuge for me. I then bottle that photograph in mineral oil with other elements like maps and handwritten texts, creating a layered sculpture, which I then re-photograph against black velvet. It is this photograph that gets printed and becomes the final work. In Evocations, I build still lives using bottles, photographs of the human figure, old maps, botanical drawings and other objects and then photograph these, creating a series of prints. Although I am still doing a lot of constructing and building, these two series do represent a return to the more traditionally photographic.

"In Memory" ©1996

Q: Do you know where you’re going when you set out to create a new piece? How often are you surprised by the results?

A: Some days I do. Some days I just leap in and see where it takes me. In general, I focus on creating series of work, so once a series has found its direction, I then seek to build on it. In beginning a new series, I often start out by daydreaming, journaling, reading, playing with the materials and objects in my studio. Once a series has defined itself, then there is a certain structure in place that I follow and play within. For example, in my series, Mapping the Body, I wanted to express the emotions and experiences housed within the body. The technique I settled on was kodalith transparency with layered collage, which I really loved because by printing images of the body on kodalith, the skin was rendered clear, so that you could literally look through it to the inner complexity below. To keep the series consistent, the pieces were all based on an image of the body printed on kodalith and then layered with other items and framed tightly. Within a series’ guidelines, however, there is a lot of room to play, and it is within this space that the creator in me revels and is often surprised by the results.

Q: When you reach for objects from nature in your collages, or capture scenes through your camera, do they represent the same metaphors to you; are there motifs that have remained throughout the body of your work?

A: I do really consider myself to be a symbolist. I love the poetic associations of objects. I have worked consistently with several elements over the past twelve years – objects like fishhooks, needles and thread, old maps, handwriting, sheet music, and in the past few years, bottles. Photographically, I have been consistently drawn to the human figure as well as the landscape close to my home which includes the Pacific Ocean. I hesitate to define the meaning of these motifs, but rather like to leave them open-ended so that the myriad associations they connote can emerge and co-mingle. It creates a certain ambiguity that I hope allows each viewer to find their own unique meaning within the work.

Sanctuary #3, ©2007

Q: From your introduction to "Bottle Dreams": "I have been particularly drawn to imagery of the natural world because it is nature that science has worked so hard to seal and study while paradoxically it is nature that holds mysteries larger than can ever possibly be contained."  Does art hold any advantage over science in exploring nature’s mysteries?

A: I think the advantage that art holds over science is that art is much more open to the imagination. Art is also is not restricted by having to stick to the facts. Science allows us to deepen our understanding of the world around us. Art allows us to deepen our understanding of the world within us – emotions, memories, experiences, dreams – things that the scientific method is challenged to quantify.

Q: Photography seems to have a limited function for the artist wishing to explore her internal landscape; could much of your work be seen as an attempt to overcome that?

A: I did indeed turn to a mixed media approach in the early 90’s, because I was seeking to express something about the lives of emotions that I could not articulate fully in a straight photograph. Yet, I do know photographers who capture psychology, interiority, mystery, and surrealism in a simple straight photograph. I, however, was not able to achieve it, and so I took the path that opened for me, which was working in a mixed media manner. I felt that I really blossomed as an artist working in this way. Another way to say this is that each artist finds the tools they need to best express themselves, and for me those tools have been an expansive sense of photography that includes the tactility of collage and sculpture.

Grand Canyon ©2004

Q: Is it fair to say that your work also shows what can happen when a photographer, through the manipulation of nature, drifts into the realm of the environmental artist?

A: I would really hesitate to describe myself as an environmental artist. Yes, my work at times engages the natural world, but really from a distinctly personal and interior place. I know of many wonderful artists who are true environmental artists, creating work that aims to transform our current environmental crisis. You could see wonderful examples of those artists work on web sites like the greenmuseum.org, the Women Environmental Artists Directory, and also in the projects section of artheals.org.

Q: Is there an intent in your work to provoke the viewer into a re-engagement with nature, with the world around them?

A: I would not go so far as to say that I intend my work to provoke a re-engagement with nature. If that happens, that’s wonderful. However, I really feel my work is much more about interiority. I would hope that someone looking at my work might be inspired to re-engage their own imagination and inner world.

Q: Should artists shoulder the responsibility of re-engaging people with nature?

A: Only if they feel it is their true work. It is wonderful when they do – whether it is environmental artists like the ones on the web sites I mentioned above, or an artist whose work I love, Keri Smith, author of the Guerrilla Art Kit, which invites people to leave anonymous gifts in the environment (a chalked quote, a patterned collection of leaves, etc) that awaken a sense of wonder and surprise in those who discover it.

My feeling is that the main responsibility of the artist is to surrender deeply to the creative process and make the best work possible. I have this quote by Martha Graham tacked to my studio wall and have always felt it best describes the true responsibility of the artist.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”

You can see more of Mary Daniel Hobson’s work at her website, marydanielhobson.com; for upcoming exhibitions, click here.

Let’s stay in touch.

Devouring Indian summer

By Kendra Smith

We spent a lot less on our latest local dinner. Around $19 for chicken and some other groceries, and that includes a pint of Straus Family Creamery Mint Chip Ice Cream  that my husband insisted wasn’t against the rules, even though I protested about the sugar, chocolate, etc. I assure you I didn’t eat a bite (at least not on local night!).

The entrée: chicken breasts, from a Petaluma Poultry Rocky (a company Michael Pollan criticizes, but anyway), pounded and simply seasoned. On the side, sautéed with those incredible red onionettes from Herbert farm, these lovely variegated ball squash, also from our CSA, which had such depth of flavor…Mmm!

I’m noticing that everything this September tastes so intense. Perhaps it’s the last burst of energy from the earth before the fallow times of winter? Or maybe it’s the perception that these tastes are now so fleeting which makes each bite so significant. On a break at work this week, I found myself robustly devouring an Asian pear, juice running down my forearm. I find no words to describe its deliciousness. I’m now eating three, four pieces of fruit a day, like it’s early summer.

On Tuesday night, I sautéed up the kernels from two ears of Brentwood corn and three of those little variegated squash, sliced, cooking with abandon rather than my usual resolve to hold onto food until I’m sure we can eat it. Now it’s cook, cook, cook, there is such bounty! And today’s crisp air and the chill in our apartment confirms it’s slipping away…

Let’s stay in touch.

Hung out to dry

By Kendra Smith

This weekend I found myself with a case of clothesline envy. I went to a party on a ranch in West Marin County set in the middle of boundless dry hills. Though the breathing room was magnificent, what I found myself lusting over was not the property itself, but a gorgeous wooden drying apparatus in the backyard, made of what looked like Western red cedar strung with actual cotton cord. I pictured swaying sheets and whiter than white shirts, bleached from the sun. Like one of those laundry commercials, only without the cartoon green grass and spinning flowers meant to indicate a “fresh” scent.

Garden Clothesline, by skenmy

Unfortunately, we have only a small balcony, so I tucked the pastoral fantasy away with other similar dreams (chicken coop, compost pile). Then I found out that some people with room for a clothesline are being punished for hanging their clothes out to dry.

Because flapping laundry is ugly. And makes you (and your neighbors) look poor. Apparently, this abuse has been going on for some time.

I side with the right-to-dry folks; clotheslines seem like common sense in these times of Middle East strife and climate change woes. And maybe it’s my youthful nostalgia (and my lack of historical hard times), but I think a clothesline’s a pretty beautiful thing, too.

Let’s stay in touch.

Name that fish

By Dale Conour

The names of 10 new species of fish will go to the highest bidder tomorrow, reports Nature (subscription only). Monaco-Asia Society and Conservation International are auctioning them off in a gala at Monaco’s Oceanographic Museum, hoping to raise more than a million dollars to fund expeditions and conservation off the coast of Papua Province in Indonesia, where the fish were discovered.

The point is made that the names of critters and plants have always been the vanity plates of the scientific world, carrying the names of their "discoverers," loved ones, celebrities, and fictional characters, so this is really nothing new in that regard. Although I can’t help wondering that, with so many species endangered and the current frenzy of corporate greenwashing, how far are we from seeing grey whales sporting the logos of their corporate sponsors ala NASCAR?

Let’s stay in touch.

Go local, go broke?

By Kendra Smith

There is a posting on the Eat Local Challenge website about eating locally on a budget. I’m going to have to read it. For our first local dinner, we were time-pressed and went to Whole Paycheck, where we knew everything grown locally would be labeled and we could shop fast. It was already 9 p.m. the night before our meal, and we really wanted to get to sleep—€”soon.

As usual, we couldn’t get out of there in fewer than 40 minutes and for less than $100 (total bill was actually $144.71). Granted, my man bought double his favorite deodorant and shaving cream, plus his personal nectar, fresh-ground almond butter at $8.99 a pound. I got the latest Blueprint on impulse in the checkout line. But still, I was in sticker shock.

And yet, we immensely enjoyed our dinner of wild-caught King salmon the next night. All expenditures forgotten (well, almost—I looked at the price tag on the paper wrapper, which read $27.99), the fish was tender and perfectly cooked; €”my husband is a master at getting that right. We had seasoned it with a mixture of Meyer lemon juice from frozen cubes I stocked away when my aunt’€™s tree had a bumper crop in June, McEvoy Ranch Olive Oil, and marjoram and parsley from what my husband calls "€œour potager"€ (read: the terra cotta pots on our patio).

We also enjoyed Phil Foster’s potatoes from our CSA. They taste earthy, flavorful, and sweet—nothing like what I’m used to. Becky, the CSA manager, asked us to email her so she could give the farmer feedback, and I keep forgetting to do it. They are phenomenal.

The other side was the quintessential simple late summer salad: sliced heirloom tomatoes topped with chopped red onions, courtesy of Herbert Farm and our CSA, and drizzled with more McEvoy oil.

For dessert, we had union-grown organic strawberries from Swanton’€™s. They are a small, sweet variety that’€™s hard to transport (luckily, they come over just from the coast). We piled them atop ice milk I made with Straus Family Creamery half-and-half and reduced fat milk. Together, we split the entire pint of berries.

Our cheats: sugar, salt, and pepper. Oh, and that bottle of Navarro Chardonnay that was already open was a bit out of range, too. Around 120 miles.

Let’s stay in touch.

Peach pie, oh my

 By Kendra Smith

Juice drips between my fingers and into the bowl as I cradle the slippery, heavy golden ball in my hand. Keeping it in place with gentle pressure, I score it into slices with a knife. They split off easily from the pit, and I pick up another and do it again, and soon the white bottom of the bowl is completely obscured by sweet-smelling peachy goodness.

Photography by Maulleigh

I have never before made peach pie. This is the first time I’ve even blanched fruit, plopping them into boiling water, then an ice cold bath, and peeling the skins away. I was forced to learn in a hurry (thanks, Mark Bittman), due to a sudden gift of peaches, received over the weekend on a visit to my husband’s father and his wife.

They live in a veritable paradise, a small valley between Ukiah and Clear Lake where there are no paved driveways and the neighbors all know each other, even if their politics don’t coincide. When we sleep over at their place in the summer, the window of the guest bedroom is always open to the spicy smell of oaks in the season’s heat and a fantastic breeze through the night. And there is fruit, boxes and boxes of it, from their neighbors with overflowing trees and gardens, who invite my father-in-law, a true fruit maniac, to share in their harvest. He loves fruit so much I assume he easily eats it all before it rots, but there is always more where it came from.

To fully illustrate the insanity of his bounty, and of the seasons in Northern California, I detail our late August take here: two white eggplants, half a dozen pears in two varieties, at least 10 peaches, several ripe plums, and a whole bag of apples we forgot on top of the dryer. (Think of the apple pie we could have had!)

This unexpected haul got me thinking about local eating and the whole 100-mile philosophy, which some folks are now criticizing, since it’s not always greenest to eat local: some things can be produced more efficiently in other places, even if you count the shipping footprint. But isn’t it always more enchanting to eat the things you love in season, and even more so that come from people you know? There is something decidedly un-charming about a peach flown from Chile in the dead of winter (and it usually won’t taste all that great, besides).

We’ve already joined a CSA that brings produce to our area from the farms further south, and my husband emails frequently with the owner, whose father is the farmer. We shop at the same three stands at a farmer’s market within walking distance nearly every week, and whether or not the farmers remember my face, I’ve come to think of them as familiar.

But, I decided, we could do a little more. So, this month, we’ll embark on the September Eat Local Challenge. We’ll be strict about our once-a-week dinners, so they may not include peach pie (our 100 miles are good, but are they good enough that someone grows wheat and grinds flour?), but at least one will certainly include peaches, if not from my father-in-law’s neighbor’s yard, at least from that familiar stand at the farmer’s market.

Let’s stay in touch.

Gathering of the tribes

By Dale Conour

Missed the train, and missed my swim this morning, thanks to a series of little things disrupting my 10-minute timetable. My wife borrowed my bike last night, and before bed I did a lousy job preparing for the morning. Which led to: u-lock key no longer on my keychain, forcing a frantic run back upstairs to the apartment from the underground garage; the lock set upside down and allied with a cable I don’t use, which caused a few moments of consternation (doesn’t take much on five hours of sleep); a bike seat set far too low (dug out the multi-tool and tried to quickly adjust—mistake!); trying (unsuccessfully) to ride fast with my knees rising up to my ear lobes and the second bag over my shoulders, the duffel, repeatedly refusing to stay put and swinging around and crashing into my side.

I made the station as the train’s doors closed and watched it clang-clang-clang away. Think Zen. Deep breath. Make the most of this. U-turn, bike home.  A few minutes longer in the shower, no-rush shave. Easy stroll. Take time to laugh at the daschund across the street who challenges me with a bark then, when I slow to turn and look at him, looks around in total disavowal.

Catch the next train south, arrive earlier than usual at the Menlo Park station. De-caf cap, brilliant blueberry scone and the beginning of Claudio Magris’s Microcosms. Reading about a cafe while in a cafe...

"The San Marco is a real cafe—the outskirts of History stamped with the conservative loyalty and the liberal pluralism of its patrons. Those places where just one tribe sets up camp are pseudocafes—never mind whether they are frequented by respectable people, youth most-likely-to, alternative lifestyles or a la page intellectuals. All endogamies are suffocating; colleges too, and university campuses, exclusive clubs, master classes, political meetings and cultural symposia, they are all a negation of life, which is a sea port."

How does Cafe Borrone hold up? Students, retired folks, early retirement SilVal vets offering advice to would-be early retirees, young couples. On the walls, the current art exhibit is "Humanity," by William Carter; it’s photographs of people from around the world—Kurds, Italians, Brits, Tibetans, New Yorkers—all different, all the same.

Savor a spoonful of foamed milk, sink into my chair, shamelessly release a wave of metaphors: started off the day at sea, am now awash in a communal tide of conversations,  and feeling, for now, content that I’ve found a harbor.

Let’s stay in touch.

What I’ve learned so far

By Dale Conour

The answers to Life’s Questions are easy.

Getting over myself is the hard part.

Let’s stay in touch.