fotosavant

A continuation of our profile of Cyanotype legend John Dugdale, based on conversations with the artist in October and November of this year. In Part I fotosavant explored the events that defined his early life and career as a top-flight editorial photographer. We concluded that installment with the illness which precipitated his transition to iconic Cyanotype artist.

With the perspective of nearly twenty years, John Dugdale refers to it as “the Event”. In reality “the Event” was a serious of medical crises unfolding over a period of months, culminating in a series of strokes which left him with no sight in one eye, diminishing sight in the other and temporarily paralyzed on one side.

While recovering in a hospital bed at St. Vincent’s he received an offer via his agent for a big-ticket wedding dress ad shoot which needed to be delivered in days. His agent, conscious of the potentially career-ending ramifications of a refusal, asked him what he wanted her to say. Dugdale recalls the moment clearly when he told her to have him call back in an hour. “I knew I was at a crossroads in life and that my answer would be a commitment to something that wasn’t clear yet.”

In the course of the next hour, several priorities became clear in his own mind. First, was that he wanted to return to photography. Second that he wanted to use photography to communicate his journey from one state of being (commercially defined success, health, security) to his current condition (experiencing isolation and loss on many levels, yet remaining actively and creatively alive) He also pragmatically realized that he was not capable of producing work that would satisfy the rigid demands of his clients and compare favorably to his previous editorial work. He instructed his agent to decline the offer.

Thanks to a determined personality, the timely arrival of a successful course of treatment, a supportive family and loyal friends a slow recovery commenced. Improbably, Dugdale returned to the NYC studio he had already called home for over a decade with an intention to live, rather than simply waiting for the next opportunistic infection to kill him.

“I began to explore the Cyanotype process. It’s primary appeal honestly, was that it was a non-toxic process I could mange within the confines of my new existence. I also had the good fortune to be have Judy Siegel (“Post-Factory Photography”) nearby. Siegel, a photographer and printmaker of historic significance in the re-emergence of handcrafted photography, literally lived next-door.

It would be Judy Siegel who would give Dugdale the first critical review of his initial work in Cyanotype. “I recalled the cucumber images I had seen years before and made some prints along those lines. Judy (Siegel) came up to take a look. I am on the fourth floor and so she stomps up the stairs in her clogs and stained work apron and looks and looks. Finally she says “You’re trying really hard to be a 19th Century Photographer. But you can’t. You are very much a 20th Century photographer.”

Believing he had found his medium but not his muse, he turned next to subject matter that was close at hand and near to heart. Throughout his illness and the early days of his re-entry into photography his family was supportive and nearby. He also became more acutely aware of the vulnerability that any artist feels when they exhibit work to the public. As many artists have said in the past “it’s like being naked in front of strangers.” As Dugdale himself puts it “Naked is a metaphor for being blind. ” The themes of family solidarity and vulnerability intertwine in the series of nudes which use the artist and his siblings as subject.

As a growing number of friends in the industry saw examples of the “new” John Dugdale several began to encourage him to exhibit the Cyanotypes. John Wessel and Billy O’Connor made the idea of an exhibit a reality and his first show was scheduled for late 1993. Thinking it would be of interest only to his close circle and a few acquaintances, he expected a small turnout of the supportive and the curious at the opening. He tells the rest of the story himself;

“People just kept coming and coming. I couldn’t really see anyone but they were saying the nicest things. Then Billy and John (Wessel and O’Connor) started whispering to me about pieces selling. That show sold out.”

“Everything that has happened in my career since is due to that one show.”

The show provided Dugdale with validation and motivation to continue the new course his career had taken. Invitations for shows began to come in and the question arose of whether to set out to create themed portfolios to provide the illusion of exclusivity that gallerists prefer. “I don’t work in series or portfolios. My life’s work is one big portfolio. I just keep adding to it.”

The “everything” that entails his second career has included dozens of solo shows at galleries and museums around the world as well as three books; Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfall (1995), Life’s Evening Hour (2000) and New Suns Will Arise (2000) in addition to editorial projects of special interest such as the publicity stills for the 2010 Broadway revival of “The Miracle Worker”.

Several seemingly disparate threads began to weave more closely together to create the John Dugdale “look” that would predominate his work for the next decade. An extensive visual archive from his editorial work plus an ability to compose the elements of design (line, shadow, texture, etc.) mentally along with an affinity for Transcendentalist thought combine to become the artistic style now so closely associated with him. “Not that I ever articulate that process to myself. It’s just reflexive for me.” quickly adding ” Though I’m sure its there.”

Transcendentalism (not to be confused with Transcendental Meditation or TM) was most famously articulated by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Central to it is the belief in an invisible world that exists in tandem with the visible and that everyone has the innate capacity to comprehend it. Much of Dugdale’s work of the 1990′s gives visual expression to that concept.

It is no coincidence that evidence of the mid-19th Century permeates the settings and props of many of his images from this period. “Ever since I was a kid and I would fantasize about time travel, the age I always wished to land in was the early 19th Century.” He had already given expression to that wish in the choice of second home in Ulster County New York. The house has been painstakingly restored and decorated in pre-Civil War aesthetic. It serves as backdrop for many of his iconic Cyanotype images.

His keen eye for detail and appreciation for having the right thing in the right place is a trait common to many visual artists. It also happens to coincide with the need of sight-impaired people to have the right thing in the right place as a matter of smoothly conducting their day-to-day lives. The marriage of preference and need combine to create a world where Dugdale had both the physical and psychological safety and control required to create great art.

In his manner of living and creating as elsewhere in his life there is a duality as he splits his time

between the farm in Ulster County and his studio/home in New York City where he and his guide dog are well-known neighborhood fixtures. It is in the city where he engages in the activities required by an ongoing art business, meeting with collectors, brokers and gallerists. “If I could, I’d spend all my time on the farm. But right now, that’s just not realistic.”

In the third and final installment, fotosavant catches up with John Dugdale today and his innovative creation that he has termed “the most awkwardly named art school in the world.”