Shaun Irving and His Cameratruck

As a photography student at Hampden Sydney College, Shaun Irving already understood how a camera worked.  In fact, he understood it so well that he joked with a fellow student about how practically anything could be made into a camera.  Though he might not have known it at the time, Irving started down a path that would change his life that night when he uttered the words, “We could even turn a truck into a camera and drive it around and take pictures.”

A few years later that idea still lingered, so Shaun bought a truck off eBay, bought some military surplus lenses, and assembled Cameratruck.  Also known as Peanut.

Cameratruck’s design is brilliant in its simplicity.  The process, however, is quite time-consuming.  Irving lines the hole in the truck up with the image he wants to take.   He uses a small piece of photographic paper to determine the appropriate exposure time.  The lenses project the image’s negative onto the back wall of the truck, where Irving has taped up a large (6 ft. wide by 3.5 to 4 ft. tall) piece of photographic paper.  This creates the negative Irving will use to make the final picture.

He develops the negative by rubbing developer and fixer onto the paper by hand with a sponge.  He calls this “letting the chemistry do its work.”  He then uses another piece of photographic paper and some Plexiglas to create the photo.  It takes more developer and more fixer and a lot of elbow grease, and the finished product shows the brush strokes, the places where the developer sat a little too long, the occasional footprint, the occasional blade of grass – and it’s beautiful.

The photos are rough, huge, and some will take your breath away.  It isn’t just the sheer size.  It’s the way they capture the world.  The somber, surreal, and almost reverent way they capture the image and communicate it through the work of Shaun’s own hands.  Every photo is touched by Shaun himself, and it makes each one that much more special.

An advertising company in Spain saw Shaun’s unique work and put him on tour in Spain, driving around and taking pictures in a different Cameratruck he assembled while he was there.  A documentary crew followed him and made the film Landscapes In A Truck.

To see some of Shaun’s work in person, check out his October 2nd opening at Rockett’s Landing.  To hear about his work and his artistic vision, check out his Talk 20 presentation at 1708 Gallery on October 7th.

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The Thin Blue Line – Public Art in Richmond

The Richmond Police Department Headquarters is located at 200 W. Grace Street, just a few blocks east of VCU’s Monroe Park Campus.  It’s a building like many other newer Richmond buildings, a fresh “New Gotham” kind of style.  It does have one very unique feature.  The eastern wall of the building is home to a 1300-pound, 12-ft. tall sculpture of a policeman’s head.

Luckily, the camera was invented some years ago, so that you don’t have to rely on my descriptive prowess to picture the large, basket-y, disembodied policeman’s head that hangs on the building.  It’s actually pretty neat – it’s made of interwoven bands of stainless steel that are arranged in such a way that light and shadow play terrific games within the mask-like face that represents Richmond’s finest.

The artist is Michael Stutz, a Tennessee native who developed his artistic style building parade floats in New Orleans.  He says that the policeman’s face represents an “everyman” while at the same time it represents a sort of solemn authority over the police department’s duty to the city.  The blue line running down the center of the sculpture’s face stands for the “dividing line between order and chaos,” a term that was created by policemen based on the fact that the police are “the men and women in blue.”  The original phrase is “the thin red line”, which refers to a famous British military stratagem used during the Crimean war.

The sculpture, a design that beat out 60 others, is very different viewed during the day and at night.  Go see it, and check it out both ways.  Here is a photo of it by day.

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Maymont Graces

This sculpture in front of the Maymont mansion is actually a reproduction of Antonio Canova’s Three Graces statue – a Neo-Classical masterpiece.  The original piece was commissioned by the 6th Duke of Bedford, who coveted a similar sculpture Canova had created for Empress Josephine.  Ol’ Dukey even tried to buy it when Josephine died, but her nephew got it instead, so the Duke decided to just get his own. 

That original piece now lives at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, but the second statue that Duke John Russell commissioned is currently shared between the National Galleries of Scotland and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  It is a magnificent piece carved out of one solid piece of marble.

The subject of the statue is centered in Greek mythology.  The Three Graces, or Charities, were goddesses that represented beauty, mirth, and good cheer.  Their lineage is a bit muddled – they are largely known as the daughters of Zeus, but they could also be the daughters of Dionysis or a myriad of other Greek mythology nobility. 

Either way, their statue is a beautiful feature of one of Richmond’s most beautiful spots.  It’s just these little (or large marble) details that make Maymont such a special place to visit.

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