April Featured Artist - Happy/L.A. Hyder
As Edgewater’s April featured artist, I wanted to bring work I hadn't shown here in my two years as a member. I traveled to Budapest in 2012 on my way to a conference in Turkey. Wanting to make the most of the trip, I opened my atlas to see who I might visit along the way. I stopped in Amsterdam, then on to Budapest, a place I never expected to see and a place I am especially glad to have visited. These images come from a few days of intense wandering around the city. I had a small camera that gave me options for image sizes, including a square format reminiscent of my many years working with a medium format, Hasselblad camera, which was very exciting to me. Budapest is one of the major European capitals much visited in the first half of the 20th Century, a stop on the Orient Express, and, if I recall correctly, a setting for a few Marx Brothers movies. The city is architecturally exquisite – until one comes to the blocks of boxy, concrete Soviet-era buildings – with broad boulevards and winding smaller streets. Some specifics about a few of these images, all of them a sampling of my Budapest work: > Gustav Eiffel designed Budapest's two large train stations. This clock adorns the North Station. > The graffiti stairs are from a bar in the old part of the City; each room in the bar was a different base color graffittied. Heavily bombed during WWII – some bars and restaurants have open back areas because of the bombings. Their original stonework blocks are each a foot deep. > I was raised Eastern Orthodox and learned there was a Hungarian Orthodox Cathedral of Our Lady, built in the mid-1800s. I went on Good Friday after an absinthe at the Budapest-Paris bar a few blocks away. As soon as I stepped into the entryway, tears came down and continued as I bought a candle and lit it for my ancestors in front of Mary's ikon. I also walked with the parishioners around the church three times, as is the custom, following the bier, as I'd done so many times before with family in Worcester MA; > I truly love the strangeness of these night shots, done without a flash on streets quiet except for our own footsteps. These are part of a series titled 'one night, two streets'. > My friend's house was near undeveloped forest, where I walked one grey afternoon. These composite pictures were a delight to do with the aid of Photoshop – something I used to attempt in a darkroom and which would have taken hours longer, if possible at all. These images are available printed on 8.5 x 11 or 13 x 19 paper, most on luster, the Eiffel clock and night shots on bamboo paper. Smaller images are $125 with mat, larger $250 with mat; plus shipping. Contact me at 707 280 9622 if you are interested. List of images: Budapest bar (a) Budapest bar (b) Budapest benches Budapest Forest (a) Budapest Forest (b) Budapest Good Friday, Orthodox Cathedral of Our Lady Budapest 'one night, two streets' (a) Budapest 'one night, two streets' (b) Eiffel Clock Springtime in Budapest Self – Budapest (a) Self – Budapest (b)
APRIL: Happy/L.A. Hyder, Photographer
MAY: Russ Christoff, Photographer
April’s Featured Artist: Happy/L.A. Hyder
May’s Featured Artist: Russ Christoff
June’s Featured Artist: Terri Lockwood
JUNE: Terri Lockwood, Artist