In celebration of the Town of Taos’ 2010 theme, RETURN TO SACRED PLACES Wilder Nightingale Fine Art presents

“Photographers of Nightingale”

March 13 through April 13.

The artists, Robbie Steinbach, Cris Pulos, Pattie Traynor, Doug Yeager and Steve Immel, all have different viewpoints on what is sacred to them and this show reflects that.

After meeting with the artists here are their thoughts.

Robbie Steinbach is inspired by a poem her friend

Rebecca Wee wrote,

the second time we met he told me about the hoop snake

seductive, exquisite, a godless man, so I listened

we weren’t sure though if it could be true –

a snake that takes its tail in its mouth, then rolls through the world

but there are reasons to believe in god and this seems a good one…

we are after something miraculous. we open our mouths, we believe,

we turn at times. we gather speed.

Steinbach finishes with, “Through my art, I seek what is sacred to me: beauty, ambiguity, mystery, shadow and light, the feminine, the ephemeral, the miraculous.”

Cris Pulos states,

"Trying to explain the sacred is like attempting to rationalize the
meaning of life. I do not think it is understandable by the mind but
is approachable from the heart and senses. Photographic images are
'captured' with these other gifts. All is sacred and we forget by
covering our lives with self-imposed veils. Using a camera helps me to
remember."

Pattie Traynor commented that most of her work comes from a place where she feels blessed. “I feel blessed that I am able to travel and experience different cultures, ceremonies, smells, tastes and the power of people when they have little food, difficult living conditions and are still content. I see the sacred in nature, the love a parent has for their child and when I see a man covered in eagle feathers dancing on the land of the Taos Pueblo. I have come to realize that my photographs, when seen by others, is a way for my life to be witnessed.”

Doug Yeager, who has been honored to receive accolades in the past couple of years at the Taos Fall Arts Open, has always felt nature is sacred.

“I love to photograph oak trees, flowers, fields and reflections in windows. When I take photos of these things I feel a connection to the past, to things that have been lost and forgotten. I am attracted to trees that have lost their leaves, a barren field, an abandon adobe dwelling.” Yeager loves old photographs and has been collecting them his entire life. In his printing process he has tried to capture the essence of an old photograph. When printing in sepia tone and diffusing his images, his goal is to capture the feeling of those old photographs of our past the past.

In conclusion, Steve Immel feels that what is sacred exists in the eye or mind of the beholder. “Indeed, sacredness is to be found in all the earth’s beings and in the grandeur of Mother Earth itself. The existence or nature of a higher power lies in this personal realm, as well. The photographs I have selected are either directly spiritual through obvious religious iconography or because they evoked an emotional or spiritual response in me at some point in the creative journey whether at the point of capture, during processing or much later upon reflection.” The images Immel has selected for the show are eclectic for he feels they pass some kind of internal test and are not necessarily connected by theme, content or style.