Off Their Wall And Onto Yours

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by Allan Appel | Aug 14, 2006 10:42 am

(2) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Arts

Around 6 o’clock on Sunday night, at 70 Audubon St., Joanne Sciulli had her eye on Number 37a, a color photograph by Rick Turek featuring a kind of garden landscape but with a screen or perhaps a facsimile of a tank of fishes sitting in the middle of it. “How in the world did that get there! It’s mysterious, and natural, and urban at the same time,” said Sciulli.

p(clear). Robert McGuire, who works for United Way in New Haven, had his heart set on 22b, a more abstract composition, a blue-tined photograph by Joe Azoti, of Orange. “Just look at it,” a smilingly hopeful McGuire said. “The colors leap out at you and look at those contrasts. I wonder what was done after the shot was taken, in the developing process.”

p(clear). Sciulli and McGuire were hoping their numbers would be chosen first among one hundred members of the public and fifty photographers participating in the 14th year of Off the Wall, a fundraiser for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, held Sunday night at the Council’s gallery at 70 Audubon St.

It was not only exciting fun, but a first rate opportunity for networking among artists whom the Council supports through this activity and others, and everybody wins.

p(clear). “Here’s how it works,” explained Maryann Ott, a volunteer who serves on the board of the Council and has been organizing Off the Wall, along with photographer Harold Shapiro, for 14 years. “We sell 100 tickets to the public and give fifty tickets to 50 photographers in exchange for the contribution of three photographs each to the auction. So, do the math: 150 photographs, 150 people, and everybody gets a photograph. If you come every year, as many people have, you can build up quite a collection. People may not get their first or even their fifty-first choice. It all depends on when their number is called, but they go away with something great.”

One of the results, said Ott, a former staffer at the Connecticut State Arts Council who herself is passionate about photography, is that people come to the gallery not only the night of the auction but the whole week before. “This event really promotes photography literacy and interest. When you pay $75, you really look, especially when you know that any of the 150 photographs you will be going with in the exhibition is worth easily four times that much, if not more on the market.”

p(clear). So as the clock was ticking away towards 7 the 150 hopefuls, or their proxies, were looking away. Kathleen Conway, an environmental lawyer from New Haven, read the rules and then focused on her first two choices, 27a and 38c, compositions by Daniel Bundy of Oxford and Terry Dagradi of New Haven respectively. It was Conway’s first time at Off the Wall; she had heard about the event through having taken photography classes at Creative Arts Workshop next door. She was too busy looking photos to talk further with a reporter but promised to get back to after the last number was called.

p(clear). As 7 o’clock neared, people peered over each others’ shoulders, the looking became quite competitive, and tension mounted. Wendy Azoti, the photographer’s wife, had no intention of choosing Joe’s work. “There’s a lot of his stuff at home, you can imagine.” She had her eye on other prizes and stood waiting, among the other 149 art lovers chafing at the bit as if an Oklahoma photo rush was about to begin, which it was, only in New Haven.

p(clear). Your reporter seized the last moment of calm to speak with two of the 50 contributing artists, Kathy Frederick (in the foreground) and Inger Schoelkopf.

“This is my sixth year participating because the Arts Council is so good to us,” said Frederick. “It’s a great way for photographers to collect each others work and to meet people you may not see for a year.” Frederick was waiting for her 16 year-old daughter, whose legs, wrapped in ballet shoes and white stockings, already hung in the photograph on the wall beside her. Was Frederick perhaps wondering who in the crowd would choose her work? The question hardly needed to be asked.

Schoelkopf, who hails from California, was showing black and white compositions, numbers 15a, b, and c hanging on the wall just around the corner. The subjects â€” the tattooed arms of a man and woman intertwining, a Walker Evans-esque barn â€” were the object of intense drive-by gazing by participants who were writing numbers down on their sheets like avid handicappers at an off-track betting office.

“I work only in film, no digital, and in black and white,” said Schoelkopf. “I try to find subjects where beauty and austerity coexist in the same image, and that powerful combination can be revealed.”

p(clear). For that reason, perhaps, Schoelkpf, along with Frederick and two other photographers, also in this year’s Off the Wall, Susan Cole and Leslie Kuo (their group is called Vision Access), are hoping to put together a show soon, which will dovetail with breast cancer awareness month in October.
All right! Maryann Ott strode to the front of the gallery, shot the metaphorical starter pistol, and the race was on: When your number was called, you have 20 seconds to call out the photograph you wanted, then go to the wall and take it off. He or she who hesitates is . . .
An hour later, results: Joanne Sciulli did not get her first choice but was happy with a Rob Rock landscape, an overpass, with trees taken in Tucson. Kathleen Conway also did not get her first, but her fifth, and was happy with her Frank McAuliffe photo of a forest floor, beautiful colors, and depth, and the perfect new possession of an environmental lawyer and mediator.

p(clear). Robert McGuire did indeed get his Azoti, of first choice, and his wife, Ilene Crawford was the proud new owner of Inger Schoelkpof’s intertwining tattooed arms. “The contrasts are beautiful,” said the Southern Connecticut University professor of English and women’s studies of Schoelkopf’s work. “Look at the trim on the dress. I think this is a detail from a wedding, and what is going on in the corner?”
Art, mystery, fundraising. Suggestion; Do not miss the 15th Off the Wall, and, full disclosure: your reporter was also a participant, and I close looking up at my beautiful number 24a, a composition with gas tanks by David Ottenstein of New Haven. Now where do I hang it?

Comments

posted by: photogrouch on August 16, 2006 1:25am

There is something distinctly not photographer-friendly about this event. As Maryann says, let’s do the math. Each photographer gives 3 pictures to the event in exchange for one ticket (good for one photograph at $75). Thus the value of the photographer’s contribution is $25 per picture. Each gets to pick a photo to take home, and it may or may not be one that he or she likes. Nevertheless, that photo is the sole compensation for a photographer’s contribution.

The math on the buyer’s side is a little different. The event is billed as a fundraiser, and the buyers get to feel like they are paying $75 to go to a party, drink wine, meet artists, hang out, contribute to a good cause and leave with a photograph that would have sold at a gallery for $300 minimum (with roughly $200 of that going to the photographer)—a price probably well within their ability to pay.

It troubles me that this charity event is not properly credited to the incredible generosity of the photographers who put their work on the walls for $25. It also troubles me that people who can afford to pay a decent price for a photograph will only buy one if it’s dirt cheap and has a fundraiser enhancement to it. And it especially troubles me that this could never happen with paintings or sculptures; no one would in their wildest dreams think they could pay a mere $75 for a work of “art”—i.e. a work that was not a photograph.

I think the Off the Wall event undervalues photographers and photography and contributes to the notion that what they do is not worth as much as what “real artists” do. For the lousy $750 the event takes in, it doesn’t even seem to be much of a success at fundraising.

posted by: Maryann Ott on August 16, 2006 4:17pm

The ticket sales (100 at $75 each) raises $7,500 for the arts council. Sponsor contributions ($3,000) and grand raffle prize ticket sales ($5 each with 250 selling = $1,250) Brings the total OTW raises for the Arts Council to about $11,750. The photographer donation is not minimized at any time during the event or the process, they are always acknowledged and promoted. We have a waiting list of photographers who want to participate and I welcome you to talk with those who have participated for 14 years (that’s 42 donations!) to find out why they do it. OTW is not for everyone, and I understand your concerns (although the value of the donation is not $25 per picture..your logic is off there). No one is pressured to participate. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further, as I am also a photographer and am interested in your thoughts.

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