All images © Melissa Fleming

Sentient V

Earlier in the year, I wrote an article on Fotofest (http://www.fofofest.org) in which I interviewed three photographers who had attended the event.  One of these artists was Melissa Fleming whose interest in the “transient and often unseen aspects of the natural world” fascinated me.  Her images and objects use actual elements of the environment, focusing on their beauty as well as their importance.  Recently, I had the opportunity to learn more about Melissa’s direction in photography and other art forms.


Robert Schaefer: You told me that you once worked in Financial Services and changed to photography.  That is quite a dramatic switch.  What prompted you to do that?  Have you been happier since you made the switch?

Melissa Fleming: Yes, my path to the art world has been somewhat circuitous.  After college, I worked in the financial services industry for a number of years. I worked with a lot of smart people at good companies, but I did not feel challenged or fulfilled by the daily routine of my job.  I wanted more out of life and soon realized I needed more time for my art.  Art had always been a passion of mine, but was put on the back burner for a long time. After some careful planning I decided to leave my job.  Originally, I thought it would only be for a few months, but those few months turned into a year and then an MFA.  I love being involved in the arts and enjoy the discoveries I make everyday in reading about, looking at, and making art.  I know that being an artist is a career from which I will never retire.

Atlantic Ocean 10 Gal.

RS: Where were you born and raised?  Were you interested in art as a child? Were you involved at all with photography growing up?

MF: I was born and raised on Staten Island, New York, one of the outer boroughs of New York City.  I did not have any formal training in the arts as a child, but I remember being especially aware of my spatial and visual surroundings at a very young age.  My first real experience with photography did not come until I was a senior in college when I took a basic black and white darkroom course as an elective.


RS: Did you study photography formally?  Where?  Who are some of the teachers who have inspired you?

MF: I took a few workshops around New York and met a lot of people who really encouraged my artistic interests, but I consider my true formal art/photography education to be my graduate school experience in the Parsons MFA program.  The professors I worked with there, including Simone Douglas, Jeff Weiss, and Anthony Aziz, truly opened my eyes and my mind to the possibilities of art.  It was one of the best learning experiences of my life.  I would do it all over again.


RS: Are there any photographers who have had an influence on your work? What about artists in other art medias?

MF: Yes, I am interested in and influenced by all mediums of art.  A short list of the artists whose work I admire and have influenced me include, Adam Fuss, Andy Goldsworthy, Anish Kapoor, Olafur Eliasson, and JMW Turner.


RS: Recently I interviewed you for my article on Fotofest, which was in Houston back in March and April.  How have the opportunities you encountered at Fotofest been working out?

White Nights

MF: My meetings at FotoFest this past March have been very fruitful.  I am pleased to say that I had some work in a group exhibition this summer at the Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco as a result of a meeting with their curator, Ann Jastrab.  The exhibition, “Landscape, other”: Views Outside Convention went very well.


RS: You were invited to participate in Photo España.  Tell us all about that.

MF: Photo España is an annual month long International Festival of Photography that takes place in Madrid, Spain.  It involves exhibitions as well as educational and professional programs.  One aspect of the festival is called Descubrimientos (Discoveries).  This is what I was involved in.  Descubrimientos is a juried portfolio review where the participants not only meet reviewers, but also are part of a group exhibition that is up for the duration of the festival.  

My overall experience in Spain was extremely positive.  I met with curators, gallery directors, and festival organizers from all over Europe. They were each very insightful and we had good discussions about concepts in art and the history of experimentation within the medium of photography.  Each of the reviewers I met with brought something unique and valuable to the conversation about my work, which I valued.  Several of the reviewers mentioned some exciting possible opportunities for my work.  I will have to follow up with them and see what happens.  
 

RS: What have been some of the highlights of your career so far?

MF: I would say that some of the highlights of my career so far include earning my MFA, being invited to exhibit my work across the U.S. and internationally (Argentina, Lithuania, and Spain), as well as placing my work in the collections of the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Museo de la Fotografía in Rafaela, Argentina and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  Another highlight has been having the opportunity to meet and work with some wonderful people, including curators, gallery owners, collectors, and fellow artists.

Flow 1

RS: I think you recently took a teaching position.  Have your classes started there yet?  If so, how has that been for you and trying to get your own work accomplished?

MF: I am an adjunct member of the faculty at Parsons and visiting lecturer at Pratt-Manhattan, both in New York City.  At Parsons, I teach a basic photography course and at Pratt, I developed and teach an alternative photographic processes class. Teaching forces me to re-examine the very fundamentals of photography.  These reassessments of the medium often spark new ideas for my own work. I also take pleasure in introducing new information to the students and watching them develop their ideas.


RS: Your work is very much a product of nature.  Were you always interested in that direction?  How did you get involved with it?
 
MF: I have always been drawn to nature and enjoy the physicality of working outdoors and directly with the landscape. For me, working with the natural world is energizing as it is in a constant state of flux, adding an element of serendipity to my work.  Long intrigued by its processes, I have come to value that nature’s more subtle and interesting beauty is often beyond the visible.   As such, most of my work is an investigation of the transient and often unseen aspects of the natural world. An interdisciplinary education, including science, history, and philosophy has influenced my way of seeing.  It has taught me to look for interconnections between and across various fields of study.  As a result, the influences on my work are diverse and incorporate the ideas of German Idealism, the Sublime, Romantic painting, Abstraction, as well as Fractal and Chaos theory.

Seachange Grid

In my various artist statements, I go into detail about how specific aspects of nature have influenced different bodies of work.  I am, however, most captivated by water. This fascination can be seen in my projects, Sentient (night seascapes) and Sea Change (photograms of the movement of matter in ocean waves).

Through my practice of art, I am continually learning about the natural world.  As my depth of knowledge increases, my approach to the subject changes artistically.


RS: It also uses printing processes from the 19th Century (palladium).  How did you get involved with them?  Do you see yourself continuing in this venue?  Might you try some of the other processes?  Which ones interest you?

MF: I enjoy the alchemy and the physicality of 19th century processes.  I am also attracted to the fact that many of the older processes only work with UV light, bringing nature back into the production process.  My decision to use palladium in the creation of the photograms of Sea Change enabled me to make images outdoors directly in the ocean with the sun, entwining the medium with the ocean. The palladium process was a vehicle for my project and not a subject in and of itself.  I have also worked with cyanotype for my White Nights project. This is a mixed media piece with a photographic base. Here again, I mainly utilized the process for its UV sensitivity.


RS: Where do you see your work going in the future?

MF: The ideas that I have been working with in my photographic imagery have carried over to other mediums, including sculptural assemblage (Under Glass) and small installations (Flow) that incorporate both photographs and three-dimensional natural objects.   I find the fluid interchange between art and science to be compelling.  They are two separate fields of study, but both have the idea of intense seeing at their core.  I locate my work at this nexus of exchange. I will always work with photography in some form, but regardless of the medium, I continue to be attracted to the idea of the unknown.


You can see more of Melissa Fleming’s work at: http://www.melissafleming.com

Her work is represented in New York by Peer Gallery: http://www.peergallery.com

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Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. is a founding member of Photoworkshop.com, and has been a photographer for over 30 years. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, France.  Most recently he had a one-person exhibition (November 10, 2007 to January 8, 2008) at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama. This work is a body of documentary images of a farmer in North Alabama where Schaefer grew up. He writes about photography for Double Exposure and The Photo Review in Pennsylvania.  He teaches photography in the Department of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. His work is represented by the Domeischel Gallery, Ltd. in New York City and the DeFrog Gallery in Houston,Texas.
 
Robert can be contacted at rasjrpro@earthlink.net  and www.schaeferphoto.com

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