Sign Up is now open for the kick-off of the PRC Nights Fall season: “Lo-Fi & Slow Photography” with Marky Kauffmann, in partnership with the Somerville Toy Camera Festival, and hosted by the Washington Art Center.
Join us for a lively evening of conversation, photo viewing, and connection with an emphasis on alternative and experimental processes, hosted by guest presenter and Somerville Toy Camera Festival exhibiting artist Marky Kauffmann. 
The kind folks at the Washington Art Center are again hosting this evening, so presenting or attending is a great chance to see the #STCF show in their gallery.
PRC Nights are free and open to all. A guest host selects a theme and leads with a presentation of their work. PRC members have the opportunity to show their own work related to that night’s theme and to garner feedback. We provide some food and drink, and everyone is welcome to bring refreshments, too.
Find out more about PRC Nights here, including how to sign up to present your work and what to bring.
Date: Tuesday, September 18th, 6:30 – 8:30pm (sign up is now open, first come, first served)
Artist host: Marky Kauffmann
Theme: Lo-Fi & Slow Photography, with an emphasis on alternative and experimental processes.
LOCATION: Washington Street Gallery at the Washington Art Center, 321 Washington Street, Somerville, just outside of Union Square. There is a small parking lot and street parking.
ABOUT THE NIGHT: Do you use lo-fi cameras and a “slow” approach to photography combined with alternative or experimental printing processes? Then consider signing up to share your work and/or attending this exciting thematic program.
Plastic lenses, cardboard pinhole cameras, “frankengear” hybrids created by joining parts from various cameras together—such decidedly low-tech and altered equipment can create highly evocative and surprisingly powerful photographs. On film, of course!
This Night is devoted to work created with toy and other lo-fi film cameras offering minimal (if any) exposure or focus controls and a big sense of adventure. Alternative and experimental printing processes are especially welcome this year. After Marky’s presentation on her work and working with such cameras, we’ll hear from and discuss other members’ work.
ABOUT THE HOST: Marky Kauffmann has been working as a fine art photographer, educator, and curator for more than thirty years. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2017 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Photography. Her traveling exhibition, Outspoken: Seven Women Photographers, which she has presented the last four years at various venues, will be exhibited at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut in the Fall of 2018.
Kauffmann is a passionate educator who has taught photography at numerous secondary schools, including Buckingham Browne and Nichols School, Milton Academy, and Weston High School. A graduate of New England School of Photography, she also spent twenty years teaching NESOP’s Evening Workshop Program.
Kauffmann has shown at regional and national galleries and museums and her work has been selected for a variety of juried exhibitions, including several Krappy Kamera and Alternative Processes National Competition offerings at Soho Photo Gallery, as well as Rayko Photo Center’s Plastic Camera Show. Kauffmann utilizes a variety of cameras and traditional darkroom techniques, alternative processes, and digital technologies to create her unique images. Silver paper, liquid emulsion, toners, potassium ferricyanide, SpotTone, and Kodak Opaque paint are all part of her alchemic arsenal.
Kauffmann’s work addresses the natural world, trauma, illness, and feminist issues, while drawing from personal history and Japanese art and flower arranging. Her series include “Prayer Images,” “Dressings,” “Lost Beauty,” and her elongated “Prayer Pieces,” three of which are on display at Brickbottom Gallery for the festival. Kauffmann splits her time between her studio in Somerville, MA, and her home in Shirley, MA, where she lives with her husband, artist Gordon Chase.
More information on the Nights program, full sign up procedure, and important guidelines, can be found here.
For a full schedule of STCF 2018 openings and events, visit the festival’s webpage or RSVP via their Facebook events.
Images: Blue Sunset, Star Shower, and Sun Burn, from the series “Prayer Pieces” – all will be on display at Brickbottom’s Gallery – and Somerville Toy Camera Festival logo and graphic