“Great Falls, Montana 8-97” from the Souvenir postcard series, set 1. All photos courtesy Cynthia Connolly, www.cynthiaconnolly.com.
The frame captures an instant, a flash, something out of the corner of your eye as you walk. It is this immediacy which
makes you look twice and then you recognize that bit of the familiar: an ice box from an old gas station, a logging truck as it passes you on the highway. Cynthia Connolly’s work is a memory of something real. Once you see it you are happy for the reminder.
Connolly’s photographs blur the distinction between fine art and documentation. They are the poetic records of a vanishing landscape. As she herself explains, it is one that almost always includes the trifecta of people, places and things that are changing. In most examples of her work “changing” is euphemism, she is capturing the last glances of a disappearing vernacular world around us. Connolly says “I want to photograph true and unique American landscapes and document these scenes before they change and it’s too late.”
“Mason’s Bend Community Center or ‘The Glass Chapel’, Mason’s Bend, Hale County, Alabama
Not only is her subject matter the last vestiges of a changing material culture, her presentation reflects this interest as well. Connolly often releases her images as postcards, the old fashioned scalloped edge type that, if you are over forty today, you may have remembered as a kid. The kind of postcards that were themselves once sold at roadside attractions.
In an interesting twist of fate Connolly was involved with one of the most critically acclaimed architectural programs in the country, Auburn University’s acclaimed Rural Studio which was founded by the architect Samuel Mockbee. Everyone who participates in the Rural Studio builds a structure and Connolly’s contribution was a vegetable stand. But the Rural Studio itself became fodder for a powerful series of black-and-white images.
“The Lucy House or ‘The Carpet House’, Mason’s Bend, Hale County, Alabama” from the Rural Studio bonus album
Connolly presently lives in Arlington County, Virginia, where she is the Visual Arts Curator for Artisphere, a 60,000 square foot Cultural Center. She continues to create exhibits from her ever-growing collection of photographs in the full and half-frame 35mm format.
For more information go to: http://www.cynthiaconnolly.com/.
“Historic Timberline Lodge, Mount Hood, Oregon 7-29-00” from set 3 of the Deckle edge postcard series
“Selma, Alabama 12-14-02” from set 4 of the Deckle edge postcard series
