Sandra Russell Clark
Cut Adrift


Exhibition Dates: September 16 - October 2, 2006
Artist Reception: Saturday, September 16, 2006, 3-5 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Saturday September 16, 2006, "Funding a Dream", Creative Edge Symposium
sponsored by the Santa Fe Center for Photography in conjunction with the Santa Fe Art Institute
at the auditorium on the grounds of the Santa Fe Photography Workshops

"New Orleans is cut adrift not only from the South but from the rest of Louisiana, somewhat like Mont Saint-Michel awash at high tide.'" - Walker Percy, quoted by Patricia Brady in her introduction to Sandra Russell Clark's book Elysium: A Gathering of Souls

Andrew Smith Gallery opens an exhibit of photographs of New Orleans cemeteries by internationally renowned photographer Sandra Russell Clark titled Cut Adrift. A native of New Orleans, Sandra Russell Clark, whose home and studio were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, will be in Santa Fe as an artist in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, and the keynote speaker for the Creative Edge symposium on Saturday, September 16, 2006, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the auditorium on the grounds of the Santa Fe Photography Workshops. Andrew Smith Gallery will host an open house for Ms. Clark on Saturday, September 16 from 3 - 5 p.m. The public is invited to view a small selection of prints (which survived Katrina) from her series Elysium, infrared photographs of New Orleans cemeteries.

In 1998 Clark and her husband had recently moved from the New Orleans' French Quarter to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Attracted by the lush beauty of the region they had bought a house and separate studio spaces a few blocks from the beach, moved in their possessions and set up their respective studios. Clark was in the habit of keeping the negatives from her most recent work in a briefcase. After Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 her briefcase of negatives was all that remained of thirty years of work. All her photographs, articles, documents, limited edition books and camera equipment, along with her home and its contents lay under three stories of debris.

The American South has been an ongoing source of inspiration for Clark. Her numerous photographic series including Gardens of Reflection, Elysium, and In Search of Eden have documented the Gulf Coast's verdant landscapes, formal gardens, and aboveground cemeteries. Her images, according to one writer, "seduce the viewer with their unabashed beauty and ignite feelings of melancholy, loss, and optimism."

On an extended trip to Venice, Italy in 1993 and 1994, Clark became enthralled by the great cemetery island of San Michele. Using infrared film she photographed its tombs carved from Carrera marble and embellished with photographs of once living people engaged in ordinary occupations like gardening and boating. Back in New Orleans Clark realized to her surprise that no book existed on New Orleans' cemeteries. She embarked on the project, using infrared film to capture their sometimes opulent, sometimes downtrodden beauty. These photographs were published by Louisiana State University Press in 1997 in the book, "Elysium, A Gathering of Souls, New Orleans Cemeteries." A selection of photographs from the Elysium project will be on exhibit at Andrew Smith Gallery through October 9, 2006.

St. Louis 1, 1997
New Orleans cemeteries are numerous, historic, and labyrinthian. They are easy to get lost in and some are extremely dangerous. Clark ventured into the jumble of St. Louis 1, 11, and 111 cemeteries with her camera equipment and a police escort. St. Louis 1, just behind the French Quarter, dates from 1789 and is the oldest extant cemetery in the city. Built without a clear sight line between monuments its tombs, according to Lafcadio Hearn, "jostle one another, the graveyard is a labyrinth in which one may easily lose oneself." Clark's photograph of a cross topped iron grail, weathered tombs in various stages of decay, and a lush royal palm tree in the distance resembles an angular Cubist composition.

St. Louis 11, 1997
St. Louis II, taken from a high vantage point, pans a sea of classical rooftops and pillars. Massive statues of angels and saints gloomily preside over this vast city of the dead. St. Louis II was designed by a French architect who in 1833 brought sophisticated tomb designs to New Orleans based on the great Parisian cemetery of Père-Lachaise.

St. Roch, 1997
Clark's family is buried in the picturesque St. Roch cemetery founded by a German priest in the late 1800s. As a child Clark would visit the family tomb, captivated and slightly frightened by its statue of St. Lucy who carries her eyes on a plate. St. Roch's strong Latin American flavor is conveyed in Clark's close-up photograph of a row of disturbingly lifelike votive offerings of plaster feet, hands and arms hanging from ancient hooks.

Metairie, 1997
Metairie is New Orleans' most opulent cemetery with huge architecturally designed tombs and statuary. Its its park-like avenues follow the curving racetrack on which it was built. Clark photographed an elegant, winged Pre-Raphaelite angel who appears to be ascending into a cloudless sky with a bouquet of stone flowers in her hands and a star on her forehead.

Holt, 1997
Holt is an indigenous cemetery, filled with humble offerings; a true potter's field. Some graves are well tended while others are unmarked or overgrown with weeds. Clark's photograph shows a field of tombstones listing this way and that. In the foreground of the image are handmade grave plaques decorated with artificial flowers and a holy card of Jesus.

Clark's silver print photographs are printed in editions of 50. Other cemeteries in the Elysium series include Odd Fellows Rest, Masonic, Gates of Prayer, Hebrew Rest, Cypress Grove, Lafayette, Carrollton, Valence Street, Greenwood, St. Vincent de Paul, and St. Patrick.

Sandra Russell Clark has been photographing for over three decades. She first came to Santa Fe in the late 1970s to participate in a workshop and work at the Center of the Eye Photography Collaborative. Between 1980 and 1985 she was the Director of Photography at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. In the early 90s she taught photography at Loyola University. Her work has been published in Vogue, Traveler, American Artist, Elle, and Mirabella among other magazines. Her photographs are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Memphis Brooks Museum, and the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York.

Liz Kay