5 January 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
James W. Bailey
2142 Glencourse Lane
Reston, VA 20191
Phone: 703-476-1474
Cell: 504-669-8650
Email: jameswbailey-AT-artroof.com

EXPERIMENTAL MISSISSIPPI ARTIST CELEBRATES THE DEATH OF 35mm FILM THROUGH THE UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS OF “ROUGH EDGE PHOTOGRAPHY” – ART INSPIRED BY FIRE AND THE SOUTHERN CULTURAL TRADITION OF THE FAMILY PHOTO WALL COLLAGE

As digital technology rapidly replaces conventional film techniques and equipment, including traditional 35mm film, an experimental artist from Mississippi resists the temptation to “go digital” and in a style worthy of a New Orleans style jazz funeral, actually celebrates the death of film.

Experimental Mississippi artist, James W. Bailey, calls his violent method of photographic based artwork “Rough Edge Photography”. He buys damaged cameras in thrift stores and mutilates his film and prints. Lenses are scratched, holes may be punched in the film canisters with a needle, and prints may be burned along with the original negatives. “I push found and discarded equipment to the extreme. I like the radical imperfections, the accidental quality that can be found in mistreating the equipment, negatives and prints”, Bailey says. “For me classic photography had become too weighted down by its own rules, conventions and practices. This combined with the impulse to rush toward digital made me want to explore 35mm film in a radically brutal fashion. ‘Rough Edge Photography’ is the result of my wanting to hang on to film until the bitter end.”

Three of Bailey’s pieces “I-10”, “Tornado” and “St. Mary’s Church” are currently on exhibit through April 9, 2004, at the League of Reston Artists/University of Phoenix Contemporary Art Exhibition in Reston, Virginia, through April 9, 2004.

Bailey explains that his “Rough Edge Photography” method results in the creation of one of kind images that cannot be duplicated or reprinted like a standard photograph with a negative. “In the case of ‘St. Mary Church’, I actually melted the original negative into wax that was dripped onto the burned print. The result is that this particular image is the only one that will ever exist,” says Bailey. “I’m fascinated by the concept of film being replaced by digital and also by being in an artistic position to comment on this next major step in the evolution of photography. For some time I had felt frustrated by all the traditional rules of conventional film. ‘Rough Edge Photography’ is my attempt to reinvent and reinterpret film at a time when digital technology and its practitioners are aggressively advancing their own artistic agenda. It’s not that I’m against digital. I just wanted to find an artistic way of creatively experimenting with the end of film.”

Although Bailey’s radical experiments with conventional film photography would be considered cutting edge, he actually reached back to his Southern roots and a childhood experience in Mississippi for inspiration: “When I was eleven years old I witnessed a farm house burn down on property near my grandfather’s farm in Mississippi. Everybody nearby pitched in to try and safe the house and its contents. I managed to pull from the burning house a smoldering wooden box that contained a historic collection of family photographs. I took the burned and charred photographs out of the box and arranged them on the grass in a collage. It was the most haunting image I have ever seen. The charred remains of this image history of the generations of this family.”

Bailey continues, “The collage that I created that day from those burned photographs reminded me very much of a tradition that every mother and grandmother practices in the south, the family photo wall collage. My grandmothers in Mississippi used to have these family photo wall collages in their homes that were incredible. They would literally place hundreds of photos of the ancestral generations on wall and they could tell you everything about every person in those photos. When you viewed the collage from a distance, you saw this agitated mass image that had no specific reference point. But when you moved in close to it, you would see photos of recently born grandchildren placed next to a photo of an ancestor who was a Civil War Confederate Veteran. These were the primary inspirations for my current style of photography.”

“Rough Edge Photography” is not Bailey’s only form of Southern Culture inspired artwork. He has also developed a style of painting he calls “Wind Painting” that is inspired by the vanishing Southern African-American rural tradition of the Bottle Tree. Bailey keeps an eye on the weather forecasts, and when a storm is approaching, he puts a canvass on a Lazy Susan and suspends paintbrushes above the canvas, releases the paintbrushes and lets the winds freely blow the brushes that are dipped in paint and suspended from tree limbs across the canvass.

Bailey’s “Rough Edge Photography” works of art, “I-10”, “Tornado”, and “St. Mary’s Church” will be featured at a contemporary art exhibition sponsored by the University of Phoenix at its Reston, Virginia, campus through April 9, 2004. This exhibition is coordinated through the League of Reston Artists. For directions to the University of Phoenix’s campus, please see the League of Reston Artists’ web site at www.legueofrestonartists.org

Bailey’s award winning “Rough Edge Photography” piece, “Abandoned Cars”, will be featured at the 2004 Gold from the Guilds Art Exhibition sponsored by the Arts Council of Fairfax County. This exhibition opens February 2, 2004, at the Reston Community Cultural Center at Lake Anne in Reston, Virginia. A reception will be held February 8, 2004, between 2-4 p.m. For directions, please see the League of Reston Artists web site at www.leagueofrestonartsits.org

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Digital Photos Attached:
1. File name: I-10.JPEG
2. File name: TORNADO.JPEG
3. File name: ST. MARY’S CHURCH.JPEG

For more information about the artist, please see the following websites:

www.jameswbailey.artroof.com or www.leagueofrestonartists.org/bailey.htm