At The Frying Pan Gallery, connect to nature through local art and live music


At The Frying Pan Gallery, connect to nature through local art and live music

More time in nature was one of the small pleasures of the pandemic, says Scientific America. We found some New Englanders who embraced the idea of going back to nature years ago



SARAH SWAIN AND THE BOYS ARE FAMILIAR FACES ON THE CAPE COD MUSIC SCENE. YOU GOT A CAP JUST AS THE FRYING PAN. THE ART GALLERY SARAH STARTED WITH HUSBAND STEVE SWAIN HAS BECOME FAMILIAR TO ART LOVERS IN WELLFLEET LIVING ON CAPE COD. THERE IS DEFINITELY A SPIRIT OF RECLAIMING AND REUSING WHAT YOU HAVE, AND THAT’S REPRESENTED IN THE GALLERY AND SO MANY WAYS. I MEAN, JUST FROM THE BUILDING ITSELF, BEING AN OLD OYSTER SHACK TO ARTISTS WHO ARE INSPIRED BY OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT HERE, A LOT OF THEM USE FOUND OBJECTS, WHETHER IT’S DRIFTWOOD OR SHELLS. STEVE SWAIN IS AN ARTIST WHOSE HANDCRAFTED METALWORK IS DISPLAYED PROUDLY THROUGHOUT THE GALLERY. I GREW UP ON THE WATER IN SITUATE AND ON THE CAPE. I BECAME A LICENSED CAPTAIN AND I WORKED ON BOATS AROUND THE WORLD. INFLUENCES THAT I BROUGHT BACK HERE. ANYONE WHO HAS SPENT TIME ON OR UNDER THE WATER WILL APPRECIATE HIS EXQUISITE DETAIL. WHEN I DESIGN THE PIECES, I LOOK AT LOTS OF VIDEO AND PHOTOS, SCHOOLS OF FISH. A LOT OF THAT’S FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCE AND MEMORY. BUT IF YOU’RE HAVING TROUBLE FINDING A NEMO THAT SPEAKS TO YOU, COME BACK BECAUSE THERE’S ALWAYS MORE. YOU SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO EXHAUST THE STUFF THAT’S IN THE OCEAN, HOPEFULLY, BECAUSE IT’S WHERE MY HEART IS. ALSO ON DISPLAY ARE PICTURES FROM COMMUNITY ACTIVIST AND PHOTOGRAPHER SHIREEN DAVIS. A LOT OF THE BOATS THAT WE HAVE HERE ON THE CAPE, MOST OF THEM ARE DAY BOATS, SO SMALL BOAT FISHERMEN, SO I’VE BEEN PART OF THAT COMMUNITY ALL MY LIFE AND BEEN DOCUMENTING THE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS THAT HAVE BEEN PART OF THAT. A WOMAN WITH SOME VIBRANT RED HAIR STANDING STRONG IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE THAT SHE’S WORKING WITH. THREE KIDS DOWN AT THE DOCK. THAT’S THEIR LIFE. THEY GREW UP THERE. IN HER PHOTO, AS DAVIS CELEBRATES HER SUBJECTS WHILE ALSO SHINING A LIGHT ON AN INCREASINGLY RARE WAY OF LIFE. YOU’RE LIVING WITH THE TIDES AND THE WIND AND AND THE QUIETUDE OF WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND THAT YOU’RE HARVESTING FOOD, AND THEN YOU’RE IN THIS BEAUTIFUL SURROUNDING. YOU CAN’T BEAT IT. AS PART OF CHATHAM FOUNDING FAMILY, SHIREEN DAVIS’S ROOTS RUN VERY DEEP, VERY DEEP. 13 GENERATIONS FOR HER HUSBAND, HOWEVER, RELATIVE NEWCOMER, ONLY TEN GENERATIONS DEEP ON HIS SIDE. BY THE WAY, THEY’VE OPENED A SECOND FRYING PAN GALLERY. THIS ONE IS IN ORLEANS, AND STEVE’S WORK, OF COURSE, CAN BE FOUND IN GALLERIES ALL OVER THE CAPE. AND THAT IS CHRONICLE FOR TONIGHT. THANKS SO MUCH FOR JOINING US, EVERYONE. I’M ANTHONY EVERETT AND I’M SHAYNA SEYMOUR. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND. WE’LL SEE YOU BACK HERE ON MONDAY.

At The Frying Pan Gallery, connect to nature through local art and live music

More time in nature was one of the small pleasures of the pandemic, says Scientific America. We found some New Englanders who embraced the idea of going back to nature years ago

In Wellfleet, art and community meet at The Frying Pan Gallery where you’ll find co-owner Steve Swain’s hand crafted sculpture as well as local art, jewelry, furniture, and more. Currently on display is work by local photographer/activist Shareen Davis whose latest photography (and cooking) can be found on her Instagram #fishchickphotog.Sarah Swain & The Oh-Boys Rockabilly sounds are staples in the Cape Cod music community. During COVID they produced a series of “Frying Pan Sessions” that are currently available Facebook.

In Wellfleet, art and community meet at The Frying Pan Gallery where you’ll find co-owner Steve Swain’s hand crafted sculpture as well as local art, jewelry, furniture, and more. Currently on display is work by local photographer/activist Shareen Davis whose latest photography (and cooking) can be found on her Instagram #fishchickphotog.

Sarah Swain & The Oh-Boys Rockabilly sounds are staples in the Cape Cod music community. During COVID they produced a series of “Frying Pan Sessions” that are currently available Facebook.



Bask in a Trio of Nature-Inspired Art Exhibits at Descanso Gardens – NBC Los Angeles


What to Know

  • Three nature-themed art exhibits will open at the La Cañada Flintridge garden in late May and June 2023
  • “Living in a Wildlife Corridor,” on view at the Boddy House from June 3-Oct. 1, will feature spectacular snapshots of regional wildlife, plus other fine artworks
  • “Wild Sighting” and “0 Horizon: Art of the Forest Floor” will also be on view at Descanso Gardens this summer

While Descanso Gardens is celebrated for all sorts of showy blooms, from wintertime camellias to the tall tulips of March, the destination’s oak-lush landscape is also the perfect place for nature-themed art to take root.

Creative expression is always on view at the La Cañada Flintridge garden come autumn and again around the holidays, when whimsical pumpkin displays and illuminated installations capture our attention.

But the property’s historical Boddy House, and other art-oriented locations, have become synonymous with intriguing exhibits.

And three shows, each boasting an authentic connection to the natural world, are set to open around Descanso Gardens in June.

“Living in a Wildlife Corridor,” an exhibit presented in partnership with the Arroyo & Foothills Conservancy, features “up-close breathtaking photography,” images that celebrate the regional fauna and flora of our remarkable region.

“Displays in this impressive exhibition also include artwork and traditional knowledge shared by Tongva Culture Bearers, the latest scientific and research expertise from conservationists, and insights into the specific challenges and opportunities around conservation in the greater Los Angeles area,” shares the garden team.

You’ll want to call upon the Boddy House, beginning on June 3, to connect with this incredible exhibit.

“Wild Sighting,” an art installation by Leslie K. Gray, opens a few days ahead of “Living in a Wildlife Corridor.”

You’ll want to gaze into the loamy landscape of the garden to, just perhaps, find something gazing back at you.

The work is “an exploration of reversing the idea of wildlife ‘sightings’ to consider what humans might see if they were attempting to cross territory claimed by others — if we were considered the intruders.”

And at the Sturt Haaga Gallery? Drawing our attention downward, “0 Horizon: Art of the Forest Floor” considers the complex universes that exist below our feet.

All exhibitions are included with your Descanso Gardens admission or membership. For dates and details, visit the destination’s website now.

Photo: Mother of Lions © Robert Martinez (Living in a Wildlife Corridor)

Austin firefighters recreate famous George Washington painting for bluebonnet photo challenge


AUSTIN, Texas – An Austin Fire Department crew recreated an iconic, historical photo with one goal in mind — to win a signature huevos rancheros breakfast from their battalion chief.

Last month, AFD Battalion Chief Mark Bridges challenged his crews to take creative photos with the spring bluebonnets.

The crew with the most creative photo would win his famous huevos rancheros breakfast.

Though the competition was fierce, the C-shift crew members from Station 31 went all out.

They displayed their rescue gear, their uniforms, and even their inflatable boat to recreate the iconic painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware by German artist Emanuel Leutze.

An image of the historical painting is shared below:

General George Washington (1732 – 1799) stands in the prow of a rowing boat crossing the Delaware to seek safety in Pennysylvania after defeat by the British. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Below is the submission from the C-shift AFD crew members:

The creative submission from the crew secured the win and the breakfast, according to AFD.

“Chief Bridges chose the 31/C submission not only for its humor but, as he put it, its accurate depiction of the heroic nature of their water rescue missions,” the fire department said in a statement.

According to AFD, the firefighters in the photo include the following: Captain Heath Haddock, Lieutenant Steve Hope, Fire Specialist Vernon Teltschick, and Firefighters Alonso Rodriguez, Josh Garcia, Robert Whitehurst, and Leslie Lugo.

The man who took the photo and came up with the idea was firefighter Sean Thomas.

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Copyright 2023 by KSAT – All rights reserved.

Lights, Camera, Action For 3rd Aotearoa Music Photography Award


The Auckland Festival of Photography Trust is delighted
to announce the 2023 Music Photography Award | Whakaahua
Puoro Toa is accepting entries now through to 20th May, with
1st and 2nd prize winners announced on 26 May in
Auckland.

Music photography
is an art form; whether it’s a community event, a big
festival highlights or a gig review, photography is always
there. It’s a wonderful cultural activity. We welcome and
look forwards to some great entries and offering some
prizes” – Julia Durkin MNZM the founder/CEO, Auckland
Festival of Photography (parent brand for ‘Image Auckland’),
“all our Awards underpin our Festival commitment to
profiling NZ photographic
excellence“.

As a part of our
20th anniversary Festival and for participation in the
Festival’s Awards we invite any NZ based photographer to
send in your best images on a music theme for the 2023 Award
contest.

Submit on our website from 1-20 May: https://photographyfestival.org.nz/photo-blog/submission.cfm

The
2023 Music Photo Award boasts Prizes –

1st prize:
NZ$1250 cash

2nd prize: NZ$500 cash

People’s
Choice prize – $250 Prezzy card (like a preloaded debit
card). Decided by public vote. People’s Choice prize winner
announced 31st May online.

Prizes sponsored by The
Bass Player Ltd and Pacific Culture and Arts Development
Association.

Participation in the future exhibitions
in 2024 plus other digital/projections/promotion of the
prize winning images. Terms and conditions apply.

In
support of the music photography scene, the image auckland
[tamaki makaurau] Queens Wharf Fence exhibition is on show
now and during the rest of May, alongside NZ Music Month and
image auckland [tamaki makaurau] lead in activities to the
announcement of the 2023 Award winners which will take place
in Auckland in May. Providing a diverse and inclusive
platform, for the exchange of ideas, artistic expression,
and engagement with photography and visual
culture.

This award is presented by Image Auckland
[tāmaki makaurau]. An Auckland Festival of Photography
project.

 

ENDS

 

Ph:
09-307-7055 Message Service only / 0274-735-443 www.photographyfestival.org.nz

Spaces,
Level 17, Commercial Bay Tower, 11 – 19 Custom St West,
Auckland CBD 1010

Registered Trust No:CC38839 –
Support our Festival, go to: http://www.givealittle.co.nz/org/AklPhotoFest

© Scoop Media


 

Ansel Adams exhibit mulls nature amid a changing climate | Art


Ansel Adams created some of the definitive photographs of the Western American landscape long before climate change threatened to obliterate it forever. Born in San Francisco in 1902, Adams is best remembered for his lush black-and-white pictures of the Yosemite Valley and the Southwest, as well as for his role as an educator who influenced generations of photographers after him.

Now, the de Young — the site of Adams’s first exhibition in 1932 — hosts “Ansel Adams in Our Time,” a major retrospective organized in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, examining the artist’s legacy in relationship with the work of 23 contemporary environmental photographers breaking new ground in the genre.

While the exhibition is full of iconic Adams shots, like “Clearing Winter Storm,” c. 1937, or “Moon and Half Dome,” 1960, both made in Yosemite National Park and many deep cuts, the artist’s work is only a jumping off point.

Richard Misrach’s “Golden Gate Bridge” series, shot from the back porch of his home in the Berkeley Hills, responds directly to Adams’s “The Golden Gate Before the Bridge,” 1932, a breathtaking view of the mouth of the Bay between the Presidio and Marin Headlands – sans bridge. Mark Klett implements collage to converse with Adams and other seminal landscape photographers. The titular view of “View from the handrail at Glacier Point overlook, connecting views from Ansel Adams to Carleton Watkins,” 2003, photographed in color by Klett, is overlaid with collage elements snipped from Adams and Watkins’s earlier black-and-white pictures.

By returning to the source, both artists play to photography’s chronological promise, revealing how much – and how little – has changed.

Others are more concerned with interrogating the act of looking itself, challenging the ubiquity of the White male gaze. Catherine Opie’s landscapes, like “Untitled #1 (Yellowstone Valley),” 2015, respond to and contradict Adams in almost every way: colorful and completely out of focus. Binh Danh’s daguerreotypes of Yosemite, a printing process using a highly copper surface, mirror the viewer in the image.

Both Opie and Dahn’s pictures raise the question of how who looks changes what they see, placing the viewer inside the landscapes they photograph. In fact, the traditional absence of humans from many landscape photographers’ work, including Adams’s, presents a bit of cognitive dissonance: The human footprint is increasingly present in nature, from population growth to climate change, while the particular absence of people in Western landscapes carries colonialist connotations. What you don’t see is just as important as what you do.

Some photographers of Adams’s era attempted more ethnographic projects, like Adam Clark Vroman’s 19th-century playing card sets, illustrated with photographs of Native Americans and sold as souvenirs. Contrast that with Will Wilson’s contemporary portraits of Native Americans like “Nakotah LaRance,” 2012, a young man carrying a portable video game system and a comic book, or Wilson’s own self-portrait “How the West is One,” 2014. Wilson’s diptych represents the artist on both sides: on one, Wilson is dressed in Indigenous cultural garb; on the other, he’s dressed like a cowboy, each staring gravely into his reflection’s eyes. Here, we get a clear view of what’s missing from the supposedly objective presentation of the hauntingly empty landscape.

While Adams’s vision of the West became ubiquitous, it was itself far from objective. Credited with several advancements on the technical side of photography, he studiously crafted many of his images post-production, often combining multiple negatives and using all the darkroom trickery available to him to create impossibly breathtaking views. These technological experimentations were cutting edge at the time, and his work continues to be at home in the company of similarly daring experimenters.

Chris McCaw and Meghann Riepenhoff both play fast and loose with the negative, accentuating the illustrative — even painterly — quality photography can possess. McCaw, who builds his own giant cameras, outfitted with periscope lenses, makes long-exposure photographs in which the trajectory of the sun burns its way across paper negatives over time. Riepenhoff’s pieces are contact prints made by exposing photo-sensitive paper to various natural phenomena, like ice, in addition to light. It’s a level of integration with nature Adams never achieved, embedding nature into their work in an inversion of human’s impact on their

environment.

In one of his rare, urban landscapes, “Housing Development, San Bruno Mountains, San Francisco,” 1966, Adams turns his own lens on the direct impact of development, a zigzag of prefab homes tearing through the hillside. Compared to Adams’s earlier nature shots, this feels like a slap in the face, forcing the viewer to confront the degradation of the landscape. There’s a way in which all of Adams’s photos could be considered depictions of humanity’s impact on the land, and the continued impact on the land is fully displayed by his contemporary counterparts.

Mitch Epstein approaches environmentalism through absurdism. In “Altamont Pass Wind Farm, California,” 2007, the arid wind farm serves as a backdrop for a group of golfers playing on the green course that abuts it. “Signal Hill, Long Beach, California,” 2007, offers a scene of an oil pump wedged between homes in a suburban neighborhood, showcasing the intersection of industrial greed, urban sprawl and willful ignorance. Laura McPhee’s diptych “Early Spring (Peeling Bark in Rain),” 2008, is a view into a dense forest of burned trees, the soot-black bark of each trunk peeling away to uncover new growth beneath. It’s a heartbreaking record of wildfire damage, with a hint of a promising future.

The beauty of the natural world has grown bittersweet. Every picture in the exhibition is gorgeous, sublime enough to teach the Hudson River School a lesson, but they’re hard to look at without recalling recent and increasing environmental travesties in the Bay Area and beyond.

By avoiding the sort of didactics often present in climate activism, Adams and company remind us what we have to lose by showing us why we love it, doing so without sacrificing any of the complex dynamics present in humanity’s relationship to the land. These pictures aren’t for posterity: they’re a reminder that time is running out.

Famed abstract artists capture nature as you’ve never seen it before


Hilma af Klint, The Ten Largest, Group IV, No. 9, Old Age, 1907.

Hilma af Klint Foundation

AT THE Tate Modern gallery in London, two pioneering artists who never met are finally brought into conversation.

Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian trained as landscape painters in the late 19th century – af Klint in Sweden, Mondrian in the Netherlands. They also died in the same year, 1944, by which time each had developed a unique abstract style.

Both worked in an era coming to terms with huge advances in microscopy, radiography and photography. The world available to the human senses had been revealed as a mere sliver of that accessible to science.

Each artist’s output included what we would now call scientific “visualisation”. Af Klint conveyed insights about how things grow in paintings inspired by botanical illustration, as in No. 9, Old Age from The Ten Largest series (main image).

Arum Lily; Blue flower 1908-1909. Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Bequest Salomon B. Slijper.j

Mondrian’s interest in the mechanics of visual perception saw him break images down to their perceptual units, so that his Arum Lily; Blue flower (pictured above) is an assembly of lines, lozenge shapes and diagonals.

Hilma af Klint, Tree of Knowledge, The W Series, No. 1, 1913.

Hilma af Klint Foundation

Af Klint’s “world tree” paintings grew almost diagrammatic in their effort to express the cosmic connections between all life, as in Tree of Knowledge (pictured above). Her attempts to map her own perceptual associations are more startling still.

Hilma af Klint, The Swan, The SUW Series, Group IX, No. 19, 1914-1915.

Hilma af Klint Foundation

The two works above and below are the culmination of a series that began with an image of two swans. Shown here are The Swan, No. 19 (pictured above) and No. 17 (pictured below), from The SUW Series, Group IX.

The Swan, The SUW Series, Group IX, No. 17, 1914-1915

Hilma af Klint Foundation

Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian: Forms of life is at the Tate Modern until 3 September.

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Nature’s beauty, protection inspires ‘Made in NY’ artists


AUBURN — Many of artists featured in “Made in NY 2023,” which opens March 25 at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, have been inspired by nature.

For some, such as Maureen Church, of Rochester, the goal with her piece “Erie Canal at Dusk” is to capture the beauty around them.

“These paintings are part of a series based on my recent plein air landscape works,” Church said in her artist’s statement. “I use rich colors and wild brushwork to represent the beauty I see in nature.”

Other artists focus on a particular aspect of nature. Henry J. Drexler, of Norwich, still lives near the dairy farm where he grew up. His artwork “Bovine Madness XXXV” begins with images of cows that he manipulates to eliminate depth.

“Whether painted in black and white or fanciful hues, I strive for playful, abstract works of bovine madness,” he said.

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Artist Joyce Hertzson, of Pittsford, actually uses bits of nature in creating her artwork “After the (F)fall,” printing leaves and branches on rag paper.

“The finished print is always full of surprises,” she said in her artist’s statement. “Even using the same set of elements and process, I am never guaranteed the same outcome.”

Other artists use their creations to warn of humans’ abuse of nature. Saranac Lake artist Barry Lobdell’s photograph “Chevron Sky” was taken Nov. 6, when the temperature reached 70 degrees.

“Not a normal temperature for Saranac Lake in November,” he said.

While the weather made for a beautiful photo, he asked: “Is this beauty only skin deep, hiding within it the danger which is inherent in our unnaturally warming planet?”

Bill Hastings, of Ithaca, is a naturalist and gardener who is acutely aware of humans’ impact on nature.

“Every action has an impact,” he said. So with his piece “Sway,” he does his part to reduce, reuse and recycle by “utilizing a ubiquitous material that seems unavoidable in contemporary culture: plastics.”

Concern for the environment led Cyndy Barbone, of Greenwich, to alter her art-making material for her work “Our Rights Are Protected in New York State.” Conscious of the growing water crisis, she decided to stop dyeing her yarn.

“I have replaced color with white or natural by using varying thicknesses of linen to explore how transparency and density in weave structure can convey images, thereby eliminating the vast amount of water used in dyeing,” she said in her artist’s statement. “The illusion of light in the resulting work is a powerful metaphor for the human spirit.”

A total of 320 artists submitted 480 entries for this year’s “Made in NY” exhibition. Jurors Gary Sczerbaniewicz, Theda Sandiford and Kevin Larmon selected 81 pieces from 79 artists for the show, which will run Saturday, March 25, through Sunday, May 28, at the Schweinfurth. The free opening reception will be 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, and prize winners will be announced at 6 p.m.

Cayuga County-area artists in the show include Mnetha Warren, of Aurora (“Wonder Bread,” 2022), Denise Moody, of Skaneateles (“Her Trunk,” 2023) and Donalee Wesley, of Marcellus (“The Revelation,” 2023).

The exhibition is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The exhibition will open along with two others at the Auburn gallery: “Triggered, Truth & Transformation” exhibition by New Jersey artist Theda Sandiford and “Positive, Negative, Shallow, and Deep,” by Oswego artist Tyrone Johnson-Neuland. (Editor’s note: Each exhibition will be featured in an upcoming edition of The Citizen’s entertainment guide, Go, and on auburnpub.com.)

Maria Welych is marketing director for the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, a multi-arts center that opened in 1981 thanks to a bequest from Auburn-born architect Julius Schweinfurth. The center’s programs include more than a dozen exhibitions each year and educational programs for children and adults, which feature local, national and international artists. For more information, call (315) 255-1553 or visit schweinfurthartcenter.org.

The Photo Finale winners from the first Napa Valley Mustard Celebration


YOUNTVILLE — The exhibition of entries in the first Photo Finale, part of the Napa Valley Mustard Celebration, is on display at the Jessup Cellars Gallery in Yountville through March 31. 

The open invitation photography competition is the brainchild of Napa Valley photographer MJ Schaer, who started working on the idea in September 2022. Schaer said his goal was “to attract professional and amateur photographers throughout the wine country to break out their cameras and capture that one-of-a-kind image.”

Schaer, who served director as well as founder for the inaugural photo competition, said he was pleased with the response, which brought in 72 submissions from 44 photographers, all studies of the wild mustard plant that blooms in profusion throughout the valley and serves as a cover crop in vineyards during the winter.

The show opened at Jessup on March 4. It “celebrates nature’s unmatched ‘yellow gold’ beauty and (the) splendor of the winter mustard bloom that blankets Napa Valley’s landscape and vineyards, up and down the valley from December through March,” Schaer said. 

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Photographers had four categories from which to choose: landscape; people/pets; innovative and food and wine.

Judging from the winners, dogs proved to be a popular choice for subjects appreciating mustard. 

Schaer said the first, second, third and honorable mentions ribbons have been awarded to the top four photographs in each of the 2023 categories.

— First place: Dean Busquaert

— Second place: MJ Schaer

— Third place: Nancy Hernandez

— Honorable Mention: Jena Kaeppeli

— First place: Kennedy Schultz

— Second place: Lyra Nerona

— Third place: Marilyn Ferrante

— Honorable Mention: Ronda Schaer

— First place: Francine Marie

— Second place: Katherine Zimmer

— Third place: Francine Marie

— Honorable Mention: Hilary Brodey

There were no entries in the food and wine category this year, Schaer said. 

Voting for Peoples’ Choice is open until March 29 in the Gallery at Jessup Cellars, Schaer said. The Peoples’ Choice award will be announced on March 30 at the closing reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The show “has been a big success,” Schaer said. “Plans for 2024 are already in the works.

“I am so pleased with the entry submissions by professional and amateur photographers,” he said. “The unique facility at Jessup Cellars Gallery gives the exhibition a true wine country setting and experience.

“This year, Nature’s Mustard Plant is getting the recognition throughout Napa Valley that it deserves.”

Artist Jessel Miller, owner of the Jessel Gallery in Napa, led the effort to re-establish a winter celebration of mustard after the demise of the Napa Valley Mustard Festival in 2010. The idea took off this year, inspiring everything from mustard infused menus at restaurants to mustard treatments at local spas, as well as mustard-inspired art. 

A complete list of Mustard Celebration activities can be found on the website, www.napavalleymustardcelebration.com.

Photo Finale 2023 exhibition at Jessup Cellars Gallery, 6740 Washington Street, Yountville, is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., daily. The photographs are available for purchase. For more information, visit the photo-finale.com 

Check out Napa Valley’s 2021 mustard bloom. The yellow flower has carpeted the valley.



Annual Juried Photography Show returns to Ocean City Arts Center


On March 15th 2023, in Ocean City, a town hall meeting addressing proposed offshore wind farm was held at the Tabernacle.



OCEAN CITY — Browse more than 40 photos from photographers across the region during the Ocean City Arts Center’s annual Juried Photography Show, on display daily starting April 1.

Photographers from Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Gloucester counties, and as far as Pennsylvania, submitted more than 125 works, with 40 selected by the show’s judges. The photographed subjects include landscapes, wildlife, architecture and people.

To be selected, judges examined certain aspects of the image, such as the overall emotional feel, techniques used and presentation. 

Guests can join a Meet the Artists reception from 7 to 8:30 p.m. April 14 at the gallery, located in the Ocean City Arts Center, 1735 Simpson Ave., 2nd Floor. The show will be on display through April 27.

Hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, call 609-399-7628.

Photo Finale show opens March 4


Yountville — “This year, nature’s mustard plant is getting the recognition throughout Napa Valley that it deserves,” says Napa Valley photographer MJ Schaer.

Schaer is the founder and director of the first Photo Finale 2023, an open invitation photography exhibition in alliance with the 2023 Napa Valley Mustard Celebration, which will premiere on March 4 at Jessup Cellars Gallery and continue through March 31.

The Photo Finale 2023 has been in the making since last fall when professional photographer Schaer set out to attract professional and amateur photographers throughout wine country to break out their cameras and capture that one-of-a-kind image.

Photo Finale 2023 will exhibit 72 works by 46 photographers showcasing the beauty of Nature’s winter mustard season in the Napa Valley.

The Photo Finale Photography Exhibition will celebrate the “yellow gold” beauty and splendor of the wnter mustard lobom that blankets Napa Valley’s landscape and vineyards from December thrrough March.

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Photographers have four categories to choose from: Landscape, People/Pets, Innovative and Food & Wine, to apply their photographic creativity and skills.

First, second, third and Honorable Mention ribbons will be awarded to the top four photographs in each category. A Peoples Choice Award will be presented at the closing reception on Friday, March 31.

Schaer said, “I am so pleased with the tally of entry submissions by professional and amateur photographers for this first annual event, and to have the unique gallery facility at Jessup Cellars Gallery gives the exhibition a true wine country setting and experience for Napa Valley’s Mustard Celebration 2023.”

Photo Finale 2023 Exhibition at Jessup Cellars Gallery, 6740 Washington Street, Yountville CA. 94599 is open to the public, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., daily.

Photo Finale 2023 Exhibition Photographs will be available for purchase.

For more information, visit photo-finale.com.

A combination of seed shortages due to warming climates, rising glass and cardboard prices and soaring prices for white wine mean you could be paying more for mustard soon.