Page 28 - the NOISE May 2015

28 • MAY 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
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Rainy weather or fighting waves out at sea, landscape photographer Joe Coyle, battles the elements to capture nature’s beauty. In May, his photography will be featured in the Artists’ Gallery. “I noticed over the years when the weather got bad people tended to put their cameras away, but they still stood around and oo’d and ah’d about how beautiful the scenery was. I thought, well you know, I’m going to keep my camera out,” says Mr. Coyle.
His father was a “camera nut.” In 1964, when Mr. Coyle was going to Germany with the Us Army, his father gave him a folding bellows camera. He started to learn his craft in Germany. He would pick through magazines with good photos to figure out how he could improve, and started to educate himself.
“To take good pictures you’ve got to know what good pictures look like. so, when I was a kid I dove into Life Maga- zine, National Geographic, and every publication I could get my hands on that had good, quality pictures.” Mr. Coyle remembers buying books and studying the craft of legendary photographers like Ansel Adams. He worked in dark rooms post-producing his photos until 7 years ago when he noticed a fundamental change in the photography world. It was going digital. To stay up with the times he started to self-educate himself again. This time he was learning how to use digital cameras and Photoshop.
“A lot of people think that a pure photographer goes out with a camera and captures a perfect image in the camera, and then you hit ‘print’ and that’s not the way it works. you go out and capture an image with as much data as you can and you come back and go to your editing software to recreate what your brain remembers it saw,” he says, divulging he can’t draw or paint, but he has an artistic streak — which shows up in his photographs of southwestern scenery. “I picked up a paint brush and it was a disaster and I can’t draw a picture that looks like anything other than a bunch of scrib- bling, but I think I have a reasonably good eye for photography and so I use a camera as my tool.”
Capturing the spirit of the southwest isn’t exclusive to photographers and painters. Ryanne Sebern encapsulates the scenery she loves in miniscule pieces of intricacy the owner can show off as easily as they can walk around town. Ms. sebern, who will also be featured at the Artists’ Gallery in May, has been creating jewelry for a decade now.
“I really like the permanence, and the ability to take the art with you. The landscapes that I put into a piece of jewelry, people can identify with. They’re something that makes them feel close to an experience or a passion that they have, and they can keep those places close to their heart by wearing them, whether it’s a pendant, earrings or a ring, but it’s something that stays with them as long as they want, wherever they want,” she says.
while Ms. sebern grew up in an artistic household, she went to a Catholic high school without an arts program, but her father took her to art classes to make sure she kept her artistic mentality. It wasn’t until college, however, when Ms. sebern knew art would be her life’s work. early on she preferred ceramics. Jewelry frustrated her. The small size and delicacy of the work made it tedious. But, she needed the class and was determined to figure it out. “I think it’s always good to push through stuff you don’t really like at first. That’s a prime example that you can end up really liking it. I love pushing myself,” she remembers, realizing It took hard work, but by the end of the semester she was hooked.
she attempts to create stories within her jewelry. One of her simpler pieces “eclipse,” is a pair of double hoop ear- rings. It is remnant of a night she watched the stars align with her family. But, much of her inspiration stems from nature, and her experience professionally leading backpacking trips into Grand Canyon.
not all of the stories she creates in her jewelry are for the viewer. sometimes she puts something secret on the back exclusively for the wearer. “I like the idea of having something special that I can choose to share with somebody, or not, and it’s something that makes it a little more personal for me,” said Ms. sebern.
Painter, jeweler and musician Ed Kabotie and potter natalie Reed-Goehl will also be featured in the Artists’ Gallery, 17 n. san Francisco, in May. FlagstaffArtistsGallery.com