Apariciones
2000-2005
Jack Spencer began the Apariciones series in 2000 just after the publication of his first book Native Soil, which addresses his past relationship with the American South. Sensing for some time that the making of art was about intention first and foremost. Spencer said at the time, “I had an idea that in some strange way, almost solipsistically, that my subjects simply appear or are somehow called forth by my own acute intention.” Mexico was an ideal place to pursue his theory further… being a world that believes in communing with the dead … the fantasmas (ghosts) and the appariciones (apparitions). The culture is dedicated to the idea of calling forth beings that do not exist on an earthly plane with Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) the obvious and prime example. Spencer sees the strategy of combining realism with fantasy as a common thread in much of Latin American culture. From Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Mario Vargos Llosa in literature to painters Fernando Botero, Frida Kahlo, Francisco Toledo and Rufino Tamayo among others, there is a vein of mystery that writers and visual artists have explored in the “other world” or the realm of magic realism.
In Mexico, Spencer discovered a world of magic and mystery, blended intensely with the real. Day-to-day adventures in obscure places and astounding encounters prompted a body of work that weaves lived experiences with the magnificent imaginary of dreams to produce photographs of compelling and seductive beauty.
The Apariciones series remains the artist’s favorite body of work.
Native Soil
Native Soil was started circa 1989, a year or so following Spencer’s return to the American South after living in the West for almost 20 years. The South he returned to seemed different from the land and culture he left many years earlier. It turned out that it was not so much that the South had changed but rather that he now had a different perspective on the deep, uncomfortable South of his youth. The world he grew up in was a racist netherworld founded on a century of resentment stemming from the humiliation of defeat following the Civil War. Morals and beliefs were embedded in the minds of almost every child, and it would not be questioned lest one be ostracized and isolated from all. Spencer began the Native Soil series with the idea of discovering how wrongly he had been taught and indoctrinated with ideas of superiority and resentment. He discovered wonderful human beings who were not only forgiving of past indiscretions and torments but also were humble, kind, joyous and lighthearted.
In 1992, Spencer found a kindred spirit in Mr. Will “Cooter” Branch. Cooter lived in Coila, Mississippi, east of Greenwood in a shotgun house where he reared nine children. “Cooter was an artistic soul,” Spencer said. “He made tombstones out of concrete and painted figures on his house and signs for his yard. Later, I got him some paints, brushes and materials and he started making ‘proper’ paintings.” He told Spencer stories of ordeals with racism — harrowing and heartbreaking — in his many years. When Spencer asked him once how he felt about white people now, he said, “There’s good white people and bad white people, bad black people and good black people. God loves them all — and that is what I try to do — love them all.”
Spencer photographed Cooter on numerous occasions. In fact, Cooter saw himself as a co-creator and collaborator of the photographs. When Spencer showed up at his house one day, he found Cooter sitting on the porch bellowing away on a euphonium horn. He asked Cooter where he got it. Cooter said he was in a junk store over in Wynona where he saw it and immediately thought that Spencer might make a picture of him with it. “Of course,” Spencer said who then persuaded Cooter to put on his “Sunday suit” for a proper portrait. The two men went for a drive, as they often did, until they found a field of young corn and made the portrait titled Cooter in the Corn with Horn.
Cooter and Jack Spencer remained friends for over 14 years until Cooter’s death. Spencer still considers him as one of his great friends in life.
Native Soil, published in 1999 by Louisiana State University Press, is illustrated with photographs of the various characters and souls Spencer encountered over the years as well as with images of the land and the evocation of the spirit of his native soil where he learned that the past is gone, but it is not forgotten.
This Land
The series This Land was started in earnest in 2003, shortly after the beginning of the war on Iraq. Spencer was opposed to war and the jingoistic rhetoric seemingly coming from all sides during that time: red, white, and blue barns; murderously angry bumperstickers and slogans, and the general attitude of people who wanted to bomb everyone in the world who was Muslim. Spencer’s response to all of this was to make a portrait of America. The landscapes and buildings and horses, buffalo, antelope, birds all became not so much metaphors or symbols, but witnesses of a forgotten culture…an America that was still there but that had lost its once sturdyfoundation.
Spencer eventually invested 14 years and traveled 85,000 miles crisscrossing the backroads of the United States to produce the photographs in the series.The best selling and critically acclaimed book This Land, An American Portrait published by The University of Texas Press contains 150 plates selected from over 500 images Spencer made on the subject.
Pulitzer Prize winning author Jon Meacham writes in the foreword to the book that Spencer has, “Taught us all how to see.” Photography critic and poet John Wood called Spencer, “The Aaron Copeland of American landscape photography.”
Portraits, Gestures and Mythologies
Gestures, Mythologies, and Portraits, although three separate series, are presented together here because the artist sees them linked by intentionality. All three series were developed in Spencer’s studio using massive and elaborate backdrops and lighting. Gestures came first. Models are often caught in motion when Spencer employs strategies in photography similar to those used by painters such as Degas and Monet. He began his artistic career as a painter (and is still a painter) and sometimes Spencer demonstrates an affinity with traditional painting techniques such as the use of splashes to convey subtlety, impression, and expressiveness in the final pictures. Motions and movements performed by the dancers and models are captured as blurred and ambiguous imagery. The rules of straight photography are ignored for the most part.
Mythologies continued the basic theme presented with Gestures but with a twist. Spencer wanted to create “beings” that existed exclusively on the film plane and only then and there. They were “mythological” creatures in that they were ephemeral and created from thin air. Models were often nude because clothing could have identified an era or time period and been distracting. Spencer painted the models’ bodies and faces with designs and motifs that emerged from a stream of consciousness perspective. To further defy expectations, he employed a palette not used in his other works. Titles were at times mythological names but some names were purely fictional and did not exist in any other context. Models were active participants in staging tableaux under the direction of the artist. The photographs in Mythologies are individual poems conveying elements of mystery and grace. They are not literal translations of personality or reality. They venture into the fantastical and the playful and sometimes the metaphoric. This series should not be read literally, but rather as a departure from the easily accessible.
The Portraits series continues the line of thought flowing through Mythologies and Gestures. There are no nudes in this series. On the contrary and similar to tronie portraits by Rembrandt, costuming and theatrical lighting are important in the process of creating characters that are not literal but ephemeral and evocative of mood and mystery. Spencer builds on his extensive knowledge of art historical prototypes, especially those established in Renaissance portraiture. He diverges sufficiently to abandon metaphor completely. Spencer’s Portraits exist on their own terms. They simply are.
Flowers
The Flowers series is a departure from Spencer’s other work. It began when Spencer walked out into the yard of a rental property that he had recently moved into and saw a single peony rising up beside the walkway. He was fascinated by this “being” that had pushed its way up through the hard late spring soil to express itself in such a beautiful and fantastical way. With petals of gossamer as delicate as silk and perfectly formed, he marveled at the wonder of its existence. Like everyone else on the planet he had seen flowers before, but until that morning, he had never “seen” a flower before. How did this happen? That a plant — year after year for many years, at exactly the same time of year, rain or snow — put together such a dazzling display of color and grace to express itself before the world? How do atoms and molecules and cells directed by genetic codes translate themselves into such wonderful displays?
Thus, began Spencer’s interest and fascination with plants and flowers. The gallery dealers that represented his work were dumbfounded. Here was an artist whose work had been edgy and somewhat dark who suddenly started making images of flowers. For the most part, they were not interested. But Spencer was never one to compromise his interests to produce what galleries considered to be lucrative or easily explained. So onward he has gone. He still makes photographs of flowers, and his interest has not waned.
The Lost Boys
In 2004, Spencer began a series of portraits of The Lost Boys of Sudan. He had followed the harrowing and tragic story of the Lost Boys in the media for years.
They had been displaced as small children when their villages were attacked by rebel soldiers. Soldiers had brutally slaughtered many of the adults in their villages. Sudanese boys were advised to flee and hide themselves. Over many months, the youths found one other and amassed into an unthinkable group of around 30,000 who wandered the desert and were turned away at the border of every country they tried to enter. Starving and lost, they finally entered Ethiopia where they were placed into refugee camps. They were then attacked once more and escaped again. Eventually, CARE, UNICEF and The United Nations set up a camp specifically for them in Kakuma, Kenya. They were housed there in relative safety for several years although conditions were poor to say the least, but they did receive a cursory education.
Finally, CARE, UNICEF, Catholic Charities and The US State Department immigrated some 20,000 of these young men to different parts of the US. Over 300 came to Nashville. A friend working locally for Catholic Charities arranged for Spencer to meet some of the boys. The artist was immediately enthralled by these wonderful young men and began making a portrait series of them. After photographing around 25 Lost Boys, Spencer received a call telling him that one of boys, Pel Gai, had been senselessly murdered the night before. Pel was personable, extremely bright and spoke three languages. He wanted to study medicine. Other boys called Spencer to tell him they had no money to bury Pel. Spencer along with a few of his friends came up with the money for the burial.
Spencer realized that the young men were completely on their own in a strange land with very little support. He founded The Lost Boys Foundation of Nashville, held fundraisers and art shows for several years, and managed to raise enough money to build a center for them in Nashville where they could gather, make and display their art, and receive help finding jobs as well as access to resources.
Spencer donated all the proceeds from the sales of the portraits he had made to The Lost Boys Foundation, including the cost of materials and without compensation for his time. Though the foundation no longer exists, Spencer is still close friends with many of the boys who have now become men. Most are doing well and thriving with good jobs and families of their own.
Rooms
The Rooms series consists of images of small models that Spencer and his assistant Andrew McKellar built in the studio. The model rooms were constructed from high density foam, painted and distressed to simulate architectural spaces that read as vast but are, in fact, quite small. Photographs were placed behind the windows and doors and lit to read as part of the environment just outside the rooms. Spencer and McKeller manipulated the light to evoke various moods.
The Rooms series is an exploration of space and mood. It is an ongoing exercise with unrealized potential. Rooms will continue to evolve over time.
Olio
Olio is a collection of images Spencer made spontaneously that do not fit into a specific series. They fall into the category of “making pictures just for the fun of it.” Some images or parts of them are lifted from other bodies of work to form collages. Olio also includes personal portraits of fellow artists such as Ruth Bernhard and Sally Mann.
Musicians
Over the years Spencer has made images of musicians for album covers and promotional packages. Though they were used commercially, Spencer sees these works mostly as portraits of friends. Being a musician himself, he has a special affinity with the making of these images.