With Rapture & Astonishment - Gallery Guide

Brent Martin

With Rapture & Astonishment

Artists & Collaborators

Beginning in August 2022, the photographers featured in this exhibition were invited to reflect upon the same five-mile section of the Bartram National Recreation Trail for twelve weeks. Between the Puc Puggy Loop near Osage Overlook and Jones Gap, these eleven members of the Kinship Photography Collective worked in the spirit of Bartram to cultivate curiosity, humility, and wonder while honoring their own artistic spirit in reimagining this ancient and well-traveled landscape.

Featured Artists

Beate Sass

Brent Martin

Eric William Carroll

Erik Mace

Frances Bukovsky

Kaye Savage

Community Collaborators

Mike Belleme

Raymond Thompson Jr. Susan Alta Martin Susan Patrice Yvonne Dalschen

LISTENING TO THE LAND

With Rapture & Astonishment

With Rapture & Astonishment is inspired by a quote from American artist, botanist, and ethnographer William Bartram, which he made upon reaching the summit of Wayah Bald in May of 1775. Here he “beheld with rapture and astonishment, a sublimely awful scene of power and magnificence, mountains piled upon mountains.” This quote from his 1791 publication Travels, is representative of the language used by Bartram to describe the southern backcountry he explored from 1773 to 1777, language that is described by historians as the first genuine and artistic interpretation of the American landscape, and the first to elevate it into the realm of the sublime.

This was the eve of the American Revolution, and the colonial American landscape was in the midst of great transformation during this time, with conflicts and tensions between settlers and native people on the increase. Bartram, however, was a Quaker, and his pacifism and respect for native peoples is palpable in his writings. Cherokee language scholar Tom Belt had remarked that William Bartram would have been

the first white man in Cherokee country that was not there to trade, convert, or swindle. Instead, he was there to observe and learn about plant life in the area and Cherokee customs and traditions. Travels could be described as a heeding as well, as it revealed Bartram’s humility before nature and his deep respect for indigenous peoples, which was in direct contrast with the conquest mentality of Colonial America at the time.

The photographs in this exhibit seek to interpret the landscape in the spirit of Bartram. The works invite us to respond with humility in a recognition of the sublime that we can access should we only stop, observe, and be present with what the natural world has to offer. Perhaps as we humans continue to dominate the planet with our demands upon it we need the experience of the sublime more than ever. Perhaps this will center us in our insignificance within the great scheme of biodiversity and evolution and humble us before all of creation.

Martin Executive Director, Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy

Brent

Image Credit: Susan Patrice

Artist Bio

Beate Sass

Beate Sass is an Atlanta photo-based artist whose imagery is inspired by the Southwest region where she grew up and her experience as a mother and advocate of a daughter with a disability. Beate is not only drawn to capture the essence and beauty of her subjects but to also utilize her knowledge of visual storytelling to highlight and amplify the voices of those who are often overlooked. Beate’s photography has been featured in solo and joint exhibitions including The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and the Southeast Museum of Photography. Her projects have been published in Lenswork, Oxford America, and South x Southeast Photomagazine.

Gneiss Rock Triptych #1

Magnolia

Seed Pod and Acorns

Digital Photography

Frame Size: 16x20

Print Size: 10x15 $300

Gneiss

Rock Triptych #2

Digital Photography

Frame Size: 24x43 Print Size: On 24” paper - 18x37 (3” white borders) $725

Intertwined #1

Digital Photography Frame Size: 18x24 Print Size: 12x18 $375

Intertwined #2

Digital Photography Frame Size: 18x24 Print Size: 12x18 $375

Gneiss Rock Triptych #1

Digital Photography

Frame Size: 24x43 Print Size: On 24” paper - 18x37 (3” white borders) $725

Pinesap Flowers

Digital Photography

Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10x15 $300

Artist Bio

Brent Martin

Brent Martin is the Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy and co-owner of Alarka Institute and Expeditions, a cultural and natural history based business offering a wide selection of outdoor experiences and workshops. He has worked in conservation for over thirty years, and is also a folk artist, writer, and photographer. His most recent book, George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina, explores the photographic career of George Masa and his photographic impact on southern Appalachian conservation.

Silver Gelatin Lumen

Prints scanned and printed on archival inkjet paper. Edition of 10

Frame Size: 15x38 Print Size: 10x33 $600

Silver Gelatin Lumen Prints scanned and printed on archival inkjet paper. Edition of 10

Frame Size: 15x38 Print Size: 10x33 $600

An Infinite Variety of Animated Scenes

Silver Gelatin Lumen Prints scanned and printed on archival inkjet paper. Edition of 10

Frame Size: 15x38 Print Size: 10x33 $600

Brent Martin & Susan Patrice Book: Silver Gelatin Lumen Prints scanned and printed on archival inkjet paper NFS

Silver Gelatin Lumen Prints scanned and printed on archival inkjet paper. Edition of 10

Frame Size: 15x38 Print Size: 10x33 $600

Canada Goldenrod

Jerusalem Artichoke Eastern Red Cedar Cardinal Flower

Eric William Carroll

Eric William Carroll’s work on photography, science, and nature explores the differences in how we experience, organize, and represent the world. Carroll’s work has been shown widely and has been included in exhibitions at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Aperture Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Pier 24 Photography, among others. Carroll has participated in residencies with the MacDowell Colony, Rayko Photo Center and the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, and was the winner of the 2012 Baum Award for Emerging Photographers. Born and raised in the Midwest, Carroll is currently based in Asheville, North Carolina.

Mountain Laurel, 11/20/22

Mountain Laurel, 11/20/22

Unique Cyanotype Photogram

Frame Size:

Print Size: 66x56 $4,000

Bramble, 11/20/22

Unique Cyanotype Photogram

Frame Size: Print Size: 66x56 $3,000

Night Canopy #3

Pigment Inkjet Print

Frame Size: 23x30 Print Size: 17x23 $500

Artist Bio

Erik Mace

Erik Mace is a photographer and graphic designer who enjoys a broad range of work, with a connective thread of examining the human experience. His books and projects often germinate from specific personal memories and grow into deeper discussions of place and identity. He is especially interested in how mixed modes of visual expression can form a singular vocabulary to seek greater understanding of personal and cultural themes. He received his BFA in Visual Communications from Washington University in St. Louis and is an alumnus of the Contemporary Photography program at ICP.

June 1775 Upon Wolf Rock

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 36x36 Print Size: 36x36 $3,200

Trail Workers: Camp #1

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 8x11 $400

Trail Workers: Camp #3

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 8x11 $400

April 1774 Upon Wilson Knob

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 36x36 Print Size: 36x36 $3,200

Gateway

Archival Pigment Print

Frame Size: 29.5x38.5 Print Size: 23.5 x 32.5 $800

December 1774 Upon Scaly Mountain

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 36x36 Print Size: 36x36 $3,200

Shimmer, Shimmer

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 12x15 $400

Trail Workers: Camp #2

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 16x14 $400

A Fern, Announcing Itself

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 12x15 $400

Such Gentle Blues

Archival Pigment Print Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10.5 x 14 $400

With August Majesty and Power

Single-edition handmade book, bamboo paper, mica NFS

Artist Bio

Frances Bukovsky

Frances Bukovsky is a photographer making work about chronic illness, disability, and queerness in the context of selfhood, relationships, and medical experiences. They utilize self portraiture, documentary photography, and alternative processes to understand their dynamic and fluid experience of both illness and gender identity. Bukovsky earned a BFA with Honors in Photography and Imaging from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2018 and has since shown work in venues such as TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image, Landmark Arts Gallery at Texas Tech, and the United Nations in NYC.

Golden Mornings

Digital Photograph

Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 7.5x10

$300

This Slow Yearning

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10.5x14 $470

Sweet Friend

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 7.5x10 $300

Thin Place

Arhival Pigment Print Frame Size: 11x17 Print Size: 15x22 $750

Endless Circling

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14

$575

Marked Fissure

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $575

Baba Jaga’s Woods

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $575

Suspended as if in a Dream

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $575

Gold Grace in the Creek

Digital Photograph

Frame Size: 24x36 Print Size: 24x36

$1,200

I am There Between Earth and Sky

Single-edition handmade book, laminated linen, pen and ink, digital photographs

NFS

A Return

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 24x36 Print Size: 24x36

$1,200

Faerie House

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 7.5x10

$300

The Sentinal’s Lichen Gown

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14

$575

These Tender Edges

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14

$575

Kaye Savage

Kaye Savage teaches Environmental Studies at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. She is also director of Wofford’s Goodall Environmental Studies Center, and manages its Long Term Environmental Reflection residency program. Her artwork spans photography and mixed media/handmade paper, with placebased themes centered on terrain patterns, natural materials, and representations of scientific data. Her past research in environmental geochemistry, and her current art practice, are explorations of chemical, physical, and biological interactions across multiple scales of time and space.

Edneyville-Chestnut Complex

Archival Ink Photography Handmade Paper (abaca, upland soil)

Frame Size: Print Size: 20x28 when arranged: each 7.75x7.75

$1,400

Cullasaja-Tucasegee Complex

Archival Ink Photography Handmade Paper (abaca, cove soil)

Frame Size: Print Size: 20x28 when arranged: each 7.75x7.75

$1,400

Toothed Jelly Fungus, Puc Puggy Loop

Digital Photograph

Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 7.5x10

$125

Dessicated Flowers, Puc Puggy Loop

Digital Photograph

Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10.5x14

$800

Edneyville-Chestnut Complex

Artist Bio

Mike Belleme

Mike Belleme is a freelance photographer based in Western North Carolina. His work ranges from long-form documentary to assignment-based editorial work, photojournalism, and portraiture. His practice involves photographing from a space of emotional availability and vulnerability and exploring themes involving connection and disconnection from that space. Belleme is a regular contributor to The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Time Magazine and The Guardian, other clients include National Geographic, New York Times Magazine, Monocle and The Atlantic. His first book, titled Mise en Scéne, published by Oro Editions in 2021, is a collaboration with urbanist, Chris Reed.

Millipede

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 8.25x10.5 $450

Rhododendron

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10x15 $600

Frosty Bonnet

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 20x30 Print Size: 20x30 $1,200

Sweet Birch

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 12x15.75 $700

Striped Maple

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 23x34.5 Print Size: 23x34.5 $1,500

Birch and Striped Maple

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 20x30 Print Size: 20x30 $1,200

Deciduous Holly

Digital Photograph Frame Size: 23x34.5 Print Size: 23x34.5 $1,500

Willow

Digital Photograph

Frame Size: 20x30 Print Size: 20x30 $1,200

Artist Bio

Raymond Thompson Jr.

Raymond Thompson Jr., is an artist, educator, and visual journalist based in Austin, TX. He currently works as an Assistant Professor of Photojournalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He has received an MFA in Photography from West Virginia University and a MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. He also graduated from the University of Mary Washington with a BA in American Studies. He has worked as a freelance photographer for The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, ProPublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell, and the Associated Press.

Ground Portal Grid

Archival Pigment Print

Individual Size: 11x14

Grid Size: 33x42

$1,500 - Grid

Temporal

Archival Pigment Print

Frame Size: 18x22 Print Size: 13.25x17.25

$550

Actino

Archival Pigment Print

Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10.5x14

$425

Fettered

Archival Pigment Print

Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 12.5x15.75

$425

Artist Bio

Susan Alta Martin

Susan Alta Martin is a photo-based artist and art educator with a background in anthropology and an MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Working in both two and three dimensions, Susan’s core interest is understanding the ways in which rural landscapes reveal socioeconomic relations. She has shown regionally, nationally, and internationally, and is a recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship. Susan currently teaches in the School of Art and Design at Western Carolina University.

String Figure 2: Entaglement

Stick Figure 3: Bartram Box

Crumpled Digital Prints Frame Size: Print Size: 14x14x32 NFS

String Figure 2: Precarity

Crumpled Digital Photograph Frame Size: Print Size: 36x36x5 NFS

String Figure 2: Entaglement

Crumpled Digital Photograph Frame Size: Print Size: 36x36.5 NFS

Susan Patrice

Susan Patrice is a documentary photographer and citizen artist. Her photography and public installations focus on the southern landscape and its people and feature intimate images that touch deeply into questions of place and belonging. Since 2016, her work has primarily explored the nature of visual perception and its impact on our feelings of connection and kinship. She engages in intimate gestural conversations with the land through the use of handbuilt cameras designed in response to place. She lives in Marshall, NC where she is the director of Makers Circle, a center for the practice of contemplative photography.

Bartram Trail #1

Archival pigment print. Edition of 10.

Frame Size: 30x30

Print Size: 23” round $1,500

Bartram Trail #3

Archival pigment print. Edition of 10.

Frame Size: 30x30 Print Size: 23” round $1,500

Bartram Trail #2

Archival pigment print. Edition of 10.

Frame Size: 30x30 Print Size: 23” round $1,500

Bartram Trail #4

Archival pigment print. Edition of 10.

Frame Size: 30x30 Print Size: 23” round $1,100

Southeast Conservation Corps #1-10

Archival Pigment Print

Frame Size: 12x12, 11x14

Print Size: 8x8, 8x11 NFS

An Infinite Variety of Animated Scenes

Brent Martin & Susan Patrice

Book: Silver Gelatin Lumen Prints scanned and printed on archival inkjet paper NFS

Yvonne Dalschen

Yvonne Dalschen is a German photographer based in Oak Ridge, TN. With a background in Comparative Literature, she is looking at signs and traces. She is frequently working with visual multiplicity through diptychs, layers and typologies. Her photography explores the history of place, human impact on the land, and the intersection of art and technology. Her work has recently shown at HeadOn Photography Festival Sydney, Eat/Art Johnson City, and was featured in Dek Unu Magazine.

Light on the Trail

Digital Photography Frame Size: 16x20 Print Size: 10x15 $650

I saw the Signs

Digital Photography Frame Size: 14x23 Print Size: 14x23 $750

Bartram Blaze Blue #1

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print: 11x14 $350

Bartram Blaze Yellow #1

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $350

Bartram Blaze Blue #2

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14

$350

Through Mica

Phone Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 7.5x10 $350

Bartram Blaze Yellow #2

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $350

Bartram Blaze Blue #3

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $350

Bartram Blaze Yellow #3

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $350

Bartram Blaze Blue #4

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14 $350

Bartram Blaze Yellow #4

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14

$350

Bartram Blaze Blue #5

Digital Photography Frame Size: 11x14 Print Size: 11x14

$350

Morning Sun

Digital Photography Frame Size: 18x24 Print Size: 12.75x19.25

$750

Bartram Blaze Grid

The Bascom creates visual art experiences that inspire and empower individuals and communities through seeing, thinking, and doing.

Erik Mace