John Chervinky's background in physics, chemistry, and materials science is evident in his ongoing series of conceptual still-lifes. Inspired by predecessors such as John Pfahl, he set out to explore issues of visual perception and photography in his ongoing series, "An Experiment in Perspective."
For the past 18 years, Chervinsky has run a particle accelerator at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA). He has shown at the Center for Photographic Art (Carmel, CA) and Photographic Center Northwest (Seattle, WA) and his upcoming exhibitions include Blue Sky Gallery (Portland, OR) and "Photography Now" at Wright State University (Dayton, OH). Featured in the PRC's Members' Print Program, his work is held in the corporate collections of Polaroid and Fidelity as well as numerous private collections. He is currently working on a book with acclaimed poet Thylias Moss.
To accomplish this, I point a view camera toward the horizon point of two right-angle chalkboards. Markings with chalk are sometimes drawn in perspective (like anamorphic illusions) such that, from the point of view of the camera, they appear to be floating in space or on the surface of the photograph. The chalk markings are juxtaposed with real objects to create tensions between the real and the imaginary.
The images are conceived to symbolically form a framework for open-ended narratives that ask questions rather than provide answers. It is hoped that viewers can bring their own history, reason and belief toward their interpretation.
Barbara Hitchcock joined the PRC Board of Directors in 1993 and served as its President from 1995 to 1998 during a fiscally difficult time for the Center. Working to stabilize and revitalize the PRC, she inaugurated the "Keepers of the Light" fundraising campaign, helped launch the annual Mother's Day Portrait event, and facilitated other financially sustaining activities, including monetary and in-kind support for the Center from Polaroid Corporation, where she has worked since the 1970s.
As Director of Corporate Cultural Affairs, she oversees Polaroid's more than 20,000-item corporate collection and has been the curator of several internationally traveling exhibitions. Her publications include Innovation/ Imagination: 50 Years of Polaroid Photography (1999), Emerging Bodies: Nudes from the Polaroid Collections (2000), and The Polaroid Book (2005). Hitchcock was the first "lay person" to serve as a juror for the National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowship for photography.
A graduate of Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY) and Simmons Graduate School of Management (Boston, MA), she and her husband, photographer/designer Jan van Steenwijk, are active on their town's historical commissions. Van Steenwijk has volunteered to photograph for the PRC's Mother's Day Portrait Extravaganza almost since its inception. In 2006, Hitchcock was awarded the Griffin Museum of Photography's (Winchester, MA) New England Beacon Award as a part of its first annual Focus Awards. She currently serves on the Photography Collection Committee of the Harvard University Art Museums.
