Marjorie Wolfe
In the lens of Marjorie Wolfe‘s camera, the wind roils air and water together, driving the clouds through the sky and whipping up peaked waves into foamy surf. Her image captures the moment forever. But if she’d come back the next day — or even a few hours before or after — maybe it wouldn’t be there at all.
That’s one of the ideas behind “Sepiessa Point,” Wolfe’s show at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville that runs through Feb. 9 with an opening reception Jan. 12.
Sepiessa Point Reservation is located on the southern shore of Martha’s Vineyard of the coast of Cape Cod, and encompasses Tisbury Great Pond, a body of water mostly cut off from the open ocean by the sliver of a barrier beach. Except, as Wolfe said, that there’s a manmade cut in the beach, which means that the pond is flushed out and rejuvenated with salt water with every tide. The forces of wind and water that created the barrier beach in the first place conspire to close the cut over time. When the cut gets too shallow, it’s dredged again — just one of may cycles Wolfe and her camera have had the chance to witness.
“I never know what I’m going to find,” she said.
Wolfe first visited Martha’s Vineyard as a child. In 1980, she and her husband bought a small property that they rent out to be able to support. But the property also means that she can visit Martha’s Vineyard in all four seasons, which she has been doing — and producing photos during those trips — for decades. Sepiessa Point represents over 20 years of photographs.
She understands the place as vulnerable to climate change. “What’s going to happen when the water levels rise?” she asked, talking about the spit of sand that protects the pond, and the land behind the pond, from the forces of the open ocean. When that barrier beach goes, the place she has been documenting will be altered forever.
But for now, and for 40 years, Wolfe has captured a place of cyclical change — the passing of seasons, the ebb and flow of tides, the forces of wind and water building the barrier beach, the forces of humans digging through it to restore drainage to the pond — and daily transformation. One day the water is rough and choppy. The next, it’s a picture of serene calm.
“Whatever I think it’s going to be,” Wolfe said of heading to the reservation with her camera, “it’s going to be different.” A series of pictures taken from the same spot of ground don’t appear to capture the same body of water.
And all of them have a story behind them, brought back by the specifics of the image. The waves in this picture aren’t blurry; they’re frozen foam, the result of plummeting temperatures during a particularly cold winter about four years ago. The story behind the creation of the image also allows some insight into Wolfe’s development as a photographer. When she first began taking pictures, she did exclusively in black and white. Digital photography allowed her to shoot images for which she could decide later whether color or black and white would work. This particular image, Wolfe said, stayed in a folder for a couple years. She kept it because it was the only picture of frozen foam she had captured, but the color image was otherwise somewhat uncompelling.
“Then it hit me,” Wolfe said. The answer was obvious — change it to black and white. And the textures and static energy of the photograph came to life.
Though this mysterious photo, Wolfe said, is her favorite in the series. It’s for the way the sun’s weak light through the mist creates just a patch of clear light on the surface of the water. If you look closely, you can also see the rocks at the bottom, close to where Wolfe’s feet would have been. The rest is half-obscured — abstracted, you might say — by swirling mist. Wolfe recalled that she was at Sepiessa Point that day with a friend. Later, when that friend saw the photograph, she remarked that she had been right at Wolfe’s side and hadn’t seen how that image could be created.
“But I saw it,” Wolfe said, “in black and white.” And took the picture to prove it.
“Sepiessa Point” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through Feb. 9, with an opening reception on Jan. 12. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.
