ONLINE July 12, 6:30-8:30pm
Featuring Stella Johnson with Ann Prochilo and Sue Michlovitz
This event is free to attend and open to the public. Register HERE.
Water is essential for sustaining life on Earth though of course it is more than just a chemical compound that can exist in several forms; it affects migration patterns, landforms, and social aspects of human life. Water effects our emotions, our way of living, our geographical choices, how we relate to others, and so much more. No matter where one lives it seems the peak of water worship is summertime, and PRC Nights Online: Water is a time to share work featuring water as the main character.
Stella Johnson‘s current series, Evidence of Life at the Water’s Edge, began in Greece in 2019. When the pandemic clamped down in early March 2020, she sought out bodies of water from Massachusetts to Florida and California where she photographed people gathering in willful pursuit of happiness, “Photographing became a spontaneous and crucial element of my day-to-day survival strategy. During a year of privation, bodies of water offered respite and satisfied my thirst for joy.”
Stella Johnson is a photographer and educator known for her passionate and honest documentary projects. She received a Core Fulbright Scholar Grant to photograph in Mexico in 2003-2004, and Fulbright Specialist grants to teach in Mexico in 2006 and in Colombia in 2018. Johnson taught at Boston University, Boston, MA, from 1999-2018 as a lecturer and has been an adjunct at Lesley University College of Art + Design, Cambridge, MA since 2005. She has led domestic workshops in New York, Maine, and Florida, as well as in Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Greece, and Israel. Johnson’s photographs have been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. Her work is held in public collections including The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, The Portland Museum of Art, Maine and The Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL among others.
Ann Prochilo‘s series This is Water is a work in progress inspired by a commencement speech from David Foster Wallace. He shared the story of two fish swimming along who meet an older fish swimming in the opposite direction. The older fish asks “How’s the water, boys?” The two young fish swim on until one of them stops short and asks, “What the hell is water?” This project examines things above and below the surface, shifting mediums and bending light. This is Water seeks to transcend the reality of the subject to illuminate something of simple awareness and the elusive nature of truth. Ann Prochilo is a photographic artist based in Malta and San Francisco. Her narrative-driven photographs explore belonging, memory and change. Prochilo received a BA from Indiana University where she pursued dual interests in fine arts and medicine. She has had a wide-ranging career as midwife, AIDS activist and founder of an advocacy relations agency. After 15 years facilitating productive relationships between patient advocates and pharmaceutical companies, she has returned to a full-time arts practice. Prochilo exhibits nationally and internationally.
Breathe in Water and Aqua Muse, studies of abstract patterns found in water, are two ongoing bodies of work by Sue Michlovitz. “Viewed with an artist’s eye, nature presents abstractions that can motivate meditation and inspire reflection, if only we are alert to seeing them.” The images from these series are created by Nature, not constructed by the artist. For Michlovitz, water is a fertile source of inspiration; she found these images while spending time on bodies of water as far north as East Greenland and as far south as Caribbean Islands. Sue Michlovitz works in photography, book arts, and mixed media. She has shown her photographs at the State of the Art Gallery (Ithaca, NY), Camden Public Library (Camden, ME), Art in the Barn of Cushing Historical Society (Cushing, ME), and Griffin Museum of Photography Lafayette City Center (Boston, Mass), Photoville FENCE 2022 (Winchester, Mass). Sue serves on the Board of Trustees at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA), Rockland, ME and she is a member of the MidCoast Maine Book Arts collective. Michlovitz holds an MFA in Media Arts from Maine Media College, Rockport, ME and a PhD in Orthopaedic Physical Therapy from Hahnemann University (now Drexel University), Philadelphia, PA. She is an internationally renowned physical therapist/hand specialist and educator who provides private consultation and talks to artists and musicians on keeping their hands and arms healthy for their artistic endeavors.