Liza Cowan self portrait with photobooth postcard

It's going to be a fun couple of months here at Pine Street Art Works. We've got a great new exhibit, new products and hey, isn't Winter half way done?

copyright Nakki Goranin from American Photobooth

Who amongst us hasn't enjoyed a trip to a photobooth and then tucked those strips of paper into photo albums or given them away to friends? What happens when those pictures, made so casually, leave their original owners and begin to circulate publicly though flea markets, antique dealers and auctions?

One answer: they become Art and History.

Burlington, VT artist, writer and photo historian Nakki Goranin has collected several hundred of these images into a new book, American Photobooth, to be published in February by W.W. Norton& Co. Leading what has become the hot trend in collecting vernacular photography, Goranin spent twenty five years gathering thousands of photobooth images made since their invention in the 1920's.

A selection of these pictures. along with images of original booths and their settings, make up the body of the new book, along with the social and technological history of this photographic phenomenon. Several of Goranin's own photobooth-based works are also included.

Goranin's collection will make it's gallery debut at Burlington's Pine Street Art Works in February and March. Dozens of images from the book, enlarged for exquisite viewing, will be included in the exhibit.

American Photobooth, which has already been cited in The New York Times and The New Yorker, is sure to be one of the most talked about photo books of 2008. After it's debut at Pine Street Art Works, the exhibit will travel to New York City for viewing at a major photography museum.

Signed copies of the book will be available at Pine Street Art Works, and the artist/author will be on hand at the opening, Saturday, February 9th, from 2-5.

Yep. I've started a blog. It's called SeeSaw (rhymes with PSAW Pine Street Art Works) and I've been writing it since just before Solstice. I'm blogging about art, artifacts, artists, retail theater, Third Places, encounters with interesting people.

So far, entries have included art and prose about Jello Ephemera, visiting local bookstores, American Photobooth, a Salsa New Year's Eve Party, meeting Charles Eames, and the connection between children's book illustrator Mary Louise Spoor and Charlie Chaplin.


I think you might like this blog, even if you don't usually read blogs. It's as ecclectic as the gallery, and already I've got a bunch of interesting people adding comments. Why don't you join them? Give it a try.

www.seesaw.typepad.com