Paul Taylor
October through November 30, 2007

The work includes images from the following portfolios: Cappadocia, Pigeons, Byzantine Marks, and The Sun. Paul Taylor is the founder of Renaissance Press, a fine arts collaborative atelier located in neighboring Ashuelot, New Hampshire. Renaissance Press works with contemporary artists and photographers creating limited edition prints, portfolios, and unique objects. Paul Taylor is considered one of the finest photogravure printers in the world. This is the first show of the complete body of images from Turkey to be shown in Brattleboro.  Taylor's first body of work photographed in Turkey consisted of landscapes created using the wet plate collodion process. The intense physicality of hauling large format equipment and a portable darkroom through the countryside, combined with the mystical and often surreal landscape, helped provide an intimacy and understanding of place that he has attempted to convey with these images.  As important as the act of photographing was, the insights gained through interactions with local Turks and the study of Turkish history, culture and local customs was equally important to Taylor. The portfolio images were created through a unique understanding gained through these experiences and became a critical component of the work created in subsequent trips.Taylor has returned twice to make images and experience this area of Turkey.   These images of the sun, pigeons in flight, and the soot charred interiors of Byzantine Monasteries intentionally give no clues as to the locality in which they are photographed but are unique to the history and culture of the region.

Brian D. Cohen The Fool's Journey Etchings from the Tarot The Fool's Journey is a book of twenty-three etchings modeled on the major arcana of the traditional tarot deck.  The tarot originated in the Renaissance as a form of cosmography, a visual illustration of a philosophical world-view.   Each card presents an archetype of human experience illuminated through a parallel, symbolic element or quality of the physical world. The progression of cards in sequence represents a journey of discovery, awareness, and insight, from the ignorance and blindness of the Fool (number 0) to the spiritual illumination of the World (number 21). The composition of each etching is based on a varied geometric framework derived from study of the history of art and sacred geometry.   The titles of the cards comprise the text for the book, hand written by calligrapher Tamara Stoneburner.   Traditional titles of the major arcane are used, with the exception of archaic or overly esoteric, for which substitutes with a historical precedent, such as the four elements, were found. The etchings are printed on handmade feather deckle paper from Papéterie St. Armand in Montréal, Canada. All etchings were completed in 2005 - 2007.   Artist Biography Brian D. Cohen is a printmaker and founder of Bridge Press publisher of limited edition artist's books, broadsides, and etchings, in Westminster Station, Vermont.   He was graduated magna cum laude with high honors from Haverford College and completed his Master's degree in Painting at the University of Washington.   He founded Bridge Press in 1989 to further the association and integration of visual image, original text, and book structure.   Cohen has shown in over twenty individual exhibitions, including a retrospective in 1997 at the Fresno Art Museum, and has participated in over 150 group shows. Cohen's books and etchings are held by major private and public collections throughout the country, including Yale, Harvard, Brown, and Stanford Universities, Middlebury, Smith, Wellesley, Swarthmore, and Dartmouth Colleges, the University of Vermont,   The New York Public Library, The Library of Congress, and the Philadelphia and Portland (Oregon) Museums of Art, as well as the United States Ambassador's residence in Egypt.   Brian has been the first-place winner of major international print competitions in San Diego, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC., and recently won an award for the best book in the international Pyramid Atlantic Book Arts Fair. Cohen's teaching experience has included classes and workshops at Marlboro College, Plymouth State College (New Hampshire), Johnson State College, The Putney School, Community College of Vermont, Norwich University, St. Michael's College, and The University of the Arts.   He was the founding director of The Putney School Summer Programs from 1987 until 2001, and was the founding artistic director of the Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction, Vermont.   He has been a faculty member at The Putney School since 1985.   Cohen is the illustrator of two popular natural science books Reading the Forested Landscape , and Granite Mountain .   He is a frequent contributor of artwork to literary reviews and other publications, including the Paris Review .   A book of his work, Bridge D. Cohen: Etchings & Books , was published in 2001.
Love and Passion a group invitational show Opening Reception February 2nd, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Exhibition Runs Through March 31st LIVING THE PASSIONATE LIFE (or thoughts from a red house) Definitions: passion |_pa sh _n|passion |_pa sh _n 1 strong and barely controllable emotion : a man of impetuous passion. See note at emotion . • a state or outburst of such emotion : oratory in which he gradually works himself up into a passion. • intense sexual love : their all-consuming passion for each other | she nurses a passion for Thomas. • an intense desire or enthusiasm for something : the English have a passion for gardens. QUESTIONS: What is it to live a passionate life? How is it to live a passionate life? How can one sustain passion in their lives? How does one open the door (and which door is opened and why are some left closed? ) and invite passion into one’s life? Who is passionate? How does one get to keep passion? What makes it go away? How is the heart involved in passion? Can you live passionately alone? Can you live passionately with another? SOME THOUGHTS ON LIVING A PASSIONATE LIFE: To me, it is about waking up and staying awake. It is about vulnerability. It is about not knowing; yet at the same time being able to go to the most intimate of places. It is about inviting a certain spiritedness into your everyday sensibility. It is a willingness to allow possibilities to unfold. It is a desire to deeply feel. It is dwelling in the sensuality of life, taking in the breadth of the most delicious sights and smells. It is getting drunk on those very sights and smells. It is about adventure in the outside world and resonating with the stillness in one’s interior world at the same time. It is about the musicality of lingering in a moment until it stretches far beyond. It is about holding the space for the landscape of aliveness and showing up therein. It is a seven and a one meeting one another on a street in a small village in Vermont 18 years ago.* It is always about hopefulness. It is about wanting to see the stars as you come up from the deep of a blackened pond on a hot summer night. It is walking through low grass, high grasses, damp grass, the sweetness of clover, all the while climbing to a high meadow to dwell in the sacred place of not knowing. It is waiting your whole life to lock a gaze again in a still pond where the dragonflys have come to remind one to go in deeper. –Catherine Dianich Gruver, Curator O2. February 2007 *On the Enneagram scale of 1-9.
PAUL KATZ Shakespearean Sonnet Series Opening Reception October 6th, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Exhibition Runs Through October 31st This show was in conjunction with The Brattleboro Literary Festival (October 6-8th).