San Francisco based Photographer and Digital Artist Douglas Poloway will have a One-Man show titled “No Limits” at 4 Design, 3813 Ray Street, in North Park in San Diego, CA from July 10 through August 11, 2004. There will be an opening night reception, open to the public, on July 10 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM as a part of “Ray at Night”, the art and culture event held on the second Saturday of each month on Ray Street between University Avenue and North Park Way in North Park.
Featured at the show will be a selection including some of Doug’s most popular pieces as well as several works being presented to the public for the first time. The works represent Doug’s varied style including Floral, Botanical, Architectural and Travel. [ read more ] >>
Douglas Poloway: Photography and Digital Imagery >>

Ronald T Simon and Marc Estrin are pleased to announce the release of their upcoming book: Rehearsing With Gods - Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater. 146 Duotone Photographs by Ronald T Simon. Eight Essays by Marc Estrin. Foreward by Grace Paley.
Rehearsing With Gods Photographs & Essays on The Bread & Puppet Theater combines a twenty year photographic documentation by Ronald T Simon with eight essays by American author Marc Estrin, in a unique bookwork to be published by Chelsea Green Publishing Company, available May 2004. Rehearsing With Gods offers a profile of theatre director Peter Schumann, established for decades as an important and influential artist, and presents a wealth of visual and written ruminations that may prove a respected publication in the history of modern theatre
"I never thought a book could do justice to the magic, the beauty, the power of Bread and Puppet. But Rehearsing with Gods does just that, with the poetic, profound commentary by Marc Estrin, and the magnificent photographs by Ron Simon, all suffused with the loving spirit of Peter and Elka Schumann and their intrepid band of puppeteers." - Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States
For an art book, Rehearsing With Gods has a solid market base to build on, beginning with Bread and Puppet`s own forty year production history and established following. Several areas of study including theatre/art history, fine art/documentary photography and activism/ philosophy are richly entwined together by eight archetypal themes that provide a framework for discussing Peter Schumann’s work. The hard bound cloth version with a first printing of 6000 is reasonably priced at $35 US. Further online discounts will make this book accessible to a larger buying public.
Rehearsing With Gods may go beyond The Bread & Puppet Theater’s traditional audience and appeal to a wider readership, both as a reference and as a work of art in itself. A heartfelt tribute that rediscovers a world of artistic creation and identifies Peter Schumann’s grand theatrical vision as one of genius amongst the great directors of modern theatre.
IOnOne art | photography | Ronald T Simon >>
author's web site >>
Chelsea Green Publishing Company White River Junction, Vermont. >>

LAKOTA SIOUX, THE MYTH AND THE LANDSCAPE
From the Thomas Corwin Donaldson Collection of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania
The exhibit and the consequent catalogue are the result of the collaboration initiated by the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia, by the Civic Museums of Pordenone and of C.R.A.F. (Center of Research and Archisives of Photography) of Lestans (PN) with the MUP – Museum of the University of Pennsylvania of Philadelphia, which has graciously agreed to lend these masterpieces of the history of American photography. The exhibit will consist of over 100 photographs, of which 74 are vintage prints which belong to the Archive of the MUP. This vast photographic fund, relating to the Native Americans and the epopee of the Surveys, was acquired by the MUP in 1899 and was part of the collection gathered by Thomas Corwin Donaldson (1843 – 1898), who was the coordinator, organizer and curator for the Smithsonian Institution of the “George Catlin Gallery”, and who was close to the great painter up until the end of his days. What’s more, from 1890 to 1893 Donaldson was entrusted by the Smithsonian to oversee the census on the Indian reservations, and on that occasion he completed his collection of images.
This is the central corpus of the exhibit, including photographs realized by Julian Vannerson, Zeno Shindler, Alexander Gardner and William Jackson, from 1857 until the early 1870’s, and in the period 1880-1900 with Charles Milton Bell, Jack Hillers, David Francis Barry, Clarence Grant Morledge, John Grabill, William Cross, John Alvin Anderson, Frank Rinehardt and Adolph Muhr,as well as Edward Curtis.
To complete it all, a series of prints of negatives conserved by the Library of Congress, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Smithsonian Institution, the Denver Public Library, the NARA, of photographers such as John Carbutt, Arundel Hull, Stanley Morrow, Laton Huffman, James Mooney, Kossuth Dixon and Roland Reed. These photographs represent the principal exponents of the Lakota Nation in their traditional costumes, their encampments and scenes of daily life, in a historic journey that at the same time is a compendium of the history of American photography from its beginnings up to the early 20th century. The exhibit and its consequent catalogue (in Italian and English) are set forth and edited by Walter Liva, the Director of C.R.A.F., and by Alex Pezzati, curator of the photographic archive of MUP.
The volume will be introduced by the Cheyenne – Oglala writer Lance Henson. Some texts will present the collections of Sioux objects of the Provincial Museums of Reggio Emilia (Roberto Macellari) and the collections held in the photographic archive of MUP (Alex Pezzati), in addition to the history of the “photographers of the Sioux” (Walter Liva). The exhibit will be presented at the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia from the 18th of April to the 4th of July 2004 and, then, from the 18th of July until the 24th of October 2004, at the Civic Museums of Pordenone where for the occasion there will be exhibited as well the original Sioux objects conserved at the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia and that for the occasion of the publication have been photographed by Vasco Ascolini, among the most famous photographers of art and museums in Europe.
The Thomas Corwin Donaldson Collection of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania

Thomas Corvin Donaldson (1843 – 1898) was the agent for the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, for which he worked for years to catalogue and organize the monumental work on the Native Americans realized by George Catlin, whom he was close to until the last days of his life, for the George Catlin Gallery , the lifelong dream of that great painter. Between 1890 and 1893, Donaldson collected in fact images of David Francis Barry, Stanley Morrow, Clarence Grant Morledge, John Grabill, William Cross, Geo Spencer and other photographers. From 1890 until 1893, Donaldson had the charge of overseeing the carrying out of the 11th census on the Indian reservations, an occasion that permitted him, as an impassioned and competent collector of objects and photographs of the era, to further extend his already important collection, complete with the corpus of photographs realized for the occasion of the Surveys by William Jackson, William Bell, Jack Hillers, Timothy O’Sullivan, as well as the vast series on the Indian delegations that visited the capital, photographed by Julian Vannerson, Zeno Schindler, Alexander Gardner and Charles Milton Bell.The extremely precious Donaldson collection was acquired by the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 1899.

The Spagni Collection of the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia One of the most precious treasures conserved in the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia is the collection of Sioux and Cheyenne materials donated by Antonio Spagni to the city of Reggio in 1844, in order that it be destined for the Chamber of Natural History “Lazzaro Spallanzani”. The ethnographic and historical-artistic value of the collection is truly exceptional. Even though it is limited in the number of objects, it holds a notable position for the American Studies of the culture of Indian material, having been formed prior to 1850 – 1870, which marked the beginning of the collapse of the traditional Indian culturesThe artefacts of the Spagni collection represent a window opened onto the technical origins of manufacture, on the particular aesthetic taste, and on the already affirmed process of incorporation of critical elements of the Western material culture ( glass beads, blue and red cloth, but also the horse, the firearms, and the alcoholic beverages ) on the part of the Indians visited by Spagni, the Western Sioux and the Cheyenne. These peoples were at that time at the apex of their picturesque culture “of the horse and buffalo”. Antonio Spagni, from Reggio, went as an exile to America after the failure/bankruptcy of the “moti” (?) of 1831 in which he had participated. In America he embarked on a commercial enterprise in St. Louis, dedicating himself to the marketing of tobacco. In those years he undertook other activities as well, such as that of a hunter of furs, which put him in contact with the nomadic tribes of the Sioux and Cheyenne. With these tribes he lived for 18 months. Perhaps the most noted object of his collection belonged to a chief of the Cheyenne, the calamet : the pipe is carved from a block of catlinate, decorated by the carving in tin of the modelling of a group that portrays two Indians seated one in front of the other intent on drinking. From a Lakota chief came the leggings and two tunics in deerskin decorated by tracings in porcupine quills and the other objects, a quiver with arrows, a bow, a coup- stick, decorated with glass beads in white and turquoise glass, and a long strap bag for tobacco. Of particular relevance would be a tunic painted with pictographs that narrate the deeds and the armed exploits of the hero to whom it belonged.
Musei Civici Reggio Emilia, IT web site >>