Modern Tintypes of Folk Musicians, by Lisa Elmaleh

Posted: October 16, 2015


Author: Christopher Miller

Title: “Modern Tintypes of Folk Musicians, by Lisa Elmaleh”

Dates Showing: October 16, 2015 through December 11, 2015

Location: Loyal Jones Appalachian Center, Longwall Gallery

Description: Seventeen tintype photographs of contemporary Appalachian folk musicians, primarily from Kentucky.  These images were selected by the artist and are part of her series America Folk.

About the Artist: Lisa Elmaleh’s work is an exploration of rural America. Using a portable darkroom in the back of her truck, Elmaleh photographs using the nineteenth century wet plate collodion process.  Elmaleh is a West Virginia based photographer and educator at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has been awarded the Aaron Siskind Foundation IPF Grant, PDN’s 30, the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation Grant, the Tierney Fellowship, and The Everglades National Park Artist Residency. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently featuring her American Folk work as a solo show at KMR Arts Gallery in Connecticut, and a group show, Imaging Eden: Photographers Discover the Everglades at the Norton Museum.  Elmaleh’s work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, PDN, and Rangefinder, among others.

Artist’s Statement: Since 2010, I have been creating tintypes of musicians who play traditional American music in and around the Appalachian Mountains – West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. I travel out to the homestead of each musician, and spend a full day or more with each musician, documenting their likeness, their instruments, and the landscape that they reside in.  Each 8×10 tintype plate is hand coated, exposed in a large format camera, and developed on-site in a small darkroom in the back of my pickup truck.

This music guides me visually – the portraits are traditional, with historical references, as the music is traditional.  I am largely influenced by those who came before me – the Appalachian portraits of Doris Ullman, or the agricultural portraits and landscapes of Dorothea Lange, or the portraits of August Sander.  I am also influenced by the field recordings and work of Alan Lomax, who actively worked to preserve traditional American music.  The tradition of American folk music echoes in the historic nature of the process I am using.

The process of my travels and finding musicians to photograph is organic and collaborative.  I find new musicians to photograph through gatherings, festivals, and dances, community centers, or by suggestions of the musicians I have photographed.  Each musician I photograph is tied to the Appalachian mountains – some whose families have lived here for many generations, others who have moved to urban areas and returned, and still others who have moved to the region to learn from the older folks who play the music.  As a transplant to this region myself, I am an active participant in this community, and am learning music as I travel and photograph.  My work is both a documentation of Appalachian heritage music, as well as a celebration of it.

The Artist’s Website: http://lisaelmaleh.com

Other Links about the Artist’s Work:

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