GRAIN

Specifics:
37 black and white archival photographs, mounted, matted and framed to museum standards.
10 are panorama format, framed 12x27"
27 are framed 16x20"

Exhibit comes with textblocks (see below), print labels, a scale diagram of the world's largest and smallest grain elevators.

Exhibit is shipped in two professionally built crates; total weight approx. 250 lbs.

Prior to the opening of the show, I will provide publicity materials including copies of selected photographs, a press release, and a photograph of the artist.

Gallery Requirements:
Approximately 120 linear feet of wall space.

Moderate security (attended gallery, locked after hours).

Availability:
The exhibit is currently available for bookings in 2003 through the end of 2005 except for the dates below:
October 2003
January -- March 2004

I am available to conduct photographic workshops (in the field or lab or both, with photographers at all skill levels (ranging from 4th grade to pros), gallery talks, slide lectures, etc. We can negotiate price and schedule.

Fees:
Please contact me via email for fees and additional specifics about availability. rivercityairlines@fflax.net

Exhibit textblock:

According to geographer John C. Hudson, the production and transport of grain is the world's biggest industry, and the plains and prairies of North America are the most important grain growing region in the world. Thus it's no surprise that the land, machines, and people engaged in the work of grain surround us in our mid-continental lives. But how often do we really look? Hidden in that square wheat field are intricate textured shadows; under that dusty cap is a man who knows all seasons of growing grain; above that Colorado town towers a solid white symbol of American agricultural abundance.

I find enormous visual satisfaction in this subject, partly because of the scale at which we grow and process grain. In Japan, rice is still traditionally hand-raised in lawn-sized paddies and stored in small warehouses, but in the States, we turn entire counties to raising wheat and store it in structures that would impress the ancient Egyptians.

Central to the idea and the image of grain is the grain elevator. In function, it is simply a gravity-operated warehouse for measuring, cleaning, sorting, and storing grain for eventual shipment elsewhere. In form, it may be as small as the abandoned GANO elevator in Alexander, Kansas, a building with a footprint about the size of a house, or as large as the magnificent Union Equity Elevator in Hutchinson, Kansas, a single concrete structure a half mile long.

While they are found from Brooklyn, New York, to Dawson Creek, B.C. (on the Alaska Highway, no less), grain elevators' richest expression comes in the towns and small cities of the open lands depicted in this exhibit. The reason is simple geometry. In a landscape so uniformly horizontal as the Great Plains and the prairies of Iowa, the grain elevator is a dramatic and welcome vertical expression. Nothing else so bravely cuts the horizon and stands against the open sky.

Those who work in them are often bemused by my photographer's interest in grain elevators. They are common places, ordinary job sites, polished by work-a-day gloved hands like those of Lyle Goettsch, who hauls and weighs and sorts with little regard to the quality of light that falls on the east bins in the late afternoon.

But people like Lyle have taught me to see function, to see these structures as machines for efficiently handling the wealth of agricultural lands. Lyle knows that once I know how something works, I can make better photographs. And perhaps I've shown him and others to see them as beautiful forms, as gorgeous cylinders, cubes, and prisms rendered into two-dimensional space.

Most significant here is the grain elevator as symbol. Much more than the town bank vault, the grain elevator is the economic heart of any grain-growing region. Nearly all of a town's monetary lifeblood flows through the arteries of the elevator in the form of corn, wheat, and soybeans. Better than the classic cornucopia, tall elevators symbolize plenty, the grace of saving now for need later. And best of all, they stand for (quite literally stand for) the men and women who grow the grain. Erect, broad-shouldered, they are the colossi of the plains and prairie, fitting icons for farmer Bob White and thousands of others who grow, harvest, and move America's grain. Drake Hokanson, 2002

Great Plains exhibit

This show is currently in development stages. Please inquire via email for the most recent updates.

Specifics:
The show will contain approximately 60 black and white archival photographs, mounted, matted and framed to museum standards. Some will be framed in 12x27" panorama format; others in standard 16x20"

Will come with textblocks, print labels, and other materials to be determined.

Exhibit is shipped in two professionally built crates; total weight approx. 300 lbs.

Prior to the opening of the show, I will provide publicity materials including copies of selected photographs, a press release, and a photograph of the artist.

Gallery Requirements:
Approximately 160 linear feet of wall space.

Moderate security (attended gallery, locked after hours).

Availability:
The exhibit will be available for booking about July 2004.

I am available to conduct photographic workshops (in the field or lab or both, with photographers at all skill levels (ranging from 4th grade to pros), gallery talks, slide lectures, etc. We can negotiate price and schedule.

Fees:
Please contact me via email for fee schedule at rivercityairlines@fflax.net