Environmental

Creative Destruction

I’m excited to announce that I’m part of a paired solo exhibition at Garage Gallery in Beacon, NY, with an opening reception this coming Saturday from 4-7 pm. The exhibition, entitled Creative Destruction, pairs destroyed (and non-destroyed) work from my series The Anthropocene Surveys with the wonderful work of Caroline Burton. The exhibition runs from June 10th-25th on weekends. I look forward to seeing the exhibition on the walls this weekend at the opening reception!

New session of Photography and Environmental Advocacy Workshop!

We’ve scheduled a new session of my new Photography & Environmental Advocacy workshop this summer…it will happen over five Tuesday afternoons, August 1st, 8th, 15th, 29th and September 19th. Find out more and sign up at the link, and please let me know if you have any questions! We did tweak the timing to allow for my time between the last classes to allow people to work more on their projects between classes.

2023 Workshops

I have three workshops scheduled with Maine Media in 2023 that have been announced (plus one more in the works!). I’m particularly excited about my brand new workshop, Photography and Environmental Advocacy, which launches February 28th. The online workshop runs Wednesday afternoons (1-4 pm Eastern) for five weeks (March 1st-March 29th). You can find out more and register here.

I’m also teaching my long-time workshops in-person, with The Craft and Art of the Fine Digital Print happening in July and The Sense of Wonder in September.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Annals of the Former World at Cove Street Arts

My Annals of the Former World project is on exhibition at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine through September 24th, 2022. There is an opening reception this coming Thursday, August 11th, from 5-7 pm, and I will of course be making the journey down.

The exhibition is based on my handmade artist book and basically includes all of the photographs from the book (with the exhibition curated by Bruce Brown). You can view and purchase a copy of the book at the exhibition as well.

I haven’t seen this exhibition on the walls yet myself so I greatly look forward to seeing it on Thursday. I hope to see many of you there!

(btw, this exhibition plus many others in New England are included on the essential What Will You Remember? blog).

Earth Day 2021

Earthrise, taken on December 24, 1968, by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders.

Earthrise, taken on December 24, 1968, by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders.

Happy Earth Day! I posted last year on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and looking back at that post now I realize how despondent I had become about the future of our environment (the beginning of the pandemic probably didn’t help things).

I’m much more optimistic now, though of course dealing with the climate emergency, preserving lands, ensuring clean air and water, and so on will still be an immense challenge. Changes in the political leadership in the United States can have such a magnifying effect on the entire world’s approach to climate and the environment, for better or for worse.

Onward!

Upcoming Camden Conference Talk

Svínafellsjökull #1, Iceland, Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Svínafellsjökull #1, Iceland, Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be presenting at an upcoming Camden Conference free community event on November 5th, 2020, from 6:30-8 pm (Eastern). If you are interested, follow the instructions at that link to sign up and get the Zoom link.

The theme of the upcoming Camden Conference in 2021 is the Arctic, and I’ll be discussing my 2018 artist residency in Iceland for the presentation. I’ll also discuss how pivotal this trip was in my own artistic development and resulted in a more activist stance in my own photography.

I hope you can join in!

Earth Day 2020

Aspens, San Juan Mountains, #5

Aspens, San Juan Mountains, #5

Today is the 50th (!) anniversary of Earth Day and the birth of the modern environmental movement. I’ve been wrestling with what to say about this, especially during the times of a global pandemic. Since the first Earth Day there have been incredible successes of the environmental movement — here in the US, the passing of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the creation of the EPA, and so on (more details here). But all of these successes are at risk from the current administration as well as the increasingly conservative courts — I have little doubt that many of these environmental protections will be in shreds in the next decade.

Discussion of the impact of the environmental movement over the last 50 years cannot ignore the larger problem looming over us of climate change. I wish I had a more positive and uplifting message for today, but the problems facing us are immense and the fight will be long and hard — but fight we must, in hopes of making a better world for future generations.