Michael Weil @ Seiberling Gallery: Exhibition Opening and Reception

Note: The Conservancy will present this program, regardless of the status of the current government shutdown.

About the Seiberling Gallery:

Named in honor of Congressman, photographer and CVNP advocate John F. Seiberling, the gallery features exhibits by local artists. Free and open to the public Monday – Friday from 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. The Cuyahoga Valley Institute is a series of adult education programs that provide meaningful immersive opportunities to engage with the valley’s natural surroundings while promoting a deeper understanding of the history, wildlife, and geography of Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

About the exhibition Ground:

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heav’n espy
– George Herbert, “The Elixir,” 1633

To begin, light wrote on ground glass.

With a nod West, I took trails paved and unpaved to the edge and back from sunset to sunrise.  Eden was a suggestion present and lost in lettuce gardens, highway shoulders, blooming deserts, parking lots, deep canyons, towering silos, tide pools, and verdant fields all seen in the viewfinder of a battered Rolleiflex that belonged to a beloved stranger.  Seen through my father’s lens, this magic box gripped the soil, sand, asphalt, mud and rubble and transcribed hyperbolic orthogonality onto ground glass.
Each image in the Ground series is a story written by light projected onto ground glass, and then onto a tiny semi-conductor, and then by ink onto paper.  Trysts between two cameras and a photographer; between the ground beneath us and the world in front of us; between analog and digital; between reality and hyperbole; between me, subjects and substrates.
As I began my exploration into the screen of the Rolleiflex, I traveled around the United States celebrating our country’s ground, gritty and grand spaces.  And I began to read John Steinbeck’s opus, East of Eden. It became a companion while I worked on Ground.  Passages from East of Eden that stopped me in my tracks became titles for images that had done the same.  Soon the two began to intertwine like roots of distinct, proximate trees.  Content, I ate the fruit of both.

Short Bio:

Michael Weil, a lifelong Clevelander, established Foothill Galleries in 2015 with the momentum of 30 years of camera work, photography education and art appreciation urging him on. He has a PhD in art history–with a concentration in photohistory, and he teaches adjunctly at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His art is an expression of his life’s continuous journey.  Michael’s photographs have been shown in exhibitions around Cleveland and have been acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Clinic, and other private collections.

Website:http://www.foothillgalleries.com/about/

FAQs

Are there ID or minimum age requirements to enter the event?

All ages are welcome.

What can I bring into the event?

We ask that patrons do not bring food or beverages to this event.

Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event?

Printed tickets are not necessary; there is no admission fee for the gallery reception.

Seiberling Gallery is a physical/mobility accessible venue.