The Tracey Baran Award and The School of Visual Arts (SVA) are pleased to announce the 1st annual Tracey Baran Award grant, in the amount of $5,000, goes to Allison Sexton. Allison Sexton lives and works in Turners Falls, MA; she received her BFA with highest distinctions from California College of Arts in 2003 and went on to receive her MFA in Photography from Yale University in 2006. Allison has been in several group shows, including My Gay Uncle at Kate Werble Gallery, 2009; Prague Biennale 4, Karlin Hall, 2009; The House Project, Westport Arts Center. Her work explores her complex relationship with Western Massachusetts—documenting the moments that happen in between the extreme and the aftermath, and explores a deeper sense of reality within her hometown and family.
The Tracey Baran Award was established to honor the memory and achievement of Tracey Baran, a young photographer who died after a short illness in 2008. This year over 400 strong and compelling applications were received. The applications were juried by Jen Davis, photographer; Christine Osinski, photographer; and Leslie Tonkonow, Director, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks+Projects. Special thanks goes to all of the artists who donated to the Tracey Baran Memorial Auction, the Tracey Baran Estate, Alexander Lockwood, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks+Projects, and the School of Visual Arts.
In a crowded Greek diner last week, the kind that seems to be gradually disappearing from the social landscape of New York, I overheard the phrase ‘drowning not waving’. Turning and scanning the room I could not determine who uttered those words, but I began to wonder how, and if, the lines of an fairly obscure British poet, Stevie Smith, had become a buzzword:
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
At home, later that day, an inevitable Google search revealed no less than three pop songs with that title, at least one disbanded band with that name, and numerous references in popular culture from The Economist to daytime television to independent filmmaking. Most seemed to have some British connotation.
In the meantime, when asked to contribute to this lovely blog all week as the editor of Dear Dave, magazine, my first thoughts, of course, were to highlight photographic information. But please accept the publishing of this compelling and provocative poem as an exercise in visual misinterpretation and literacy.
