Poignant Portfolio no. 37: Jane Olin
From the Editor
I recently acquired a new clock/blue tooth speaker/night light for my girls’ bedroom. Like most modern LED lights, you can pick your favorite color on the spectrum to fall asleep to. Whenever I switch it to red, the girls freak out and say it’s too scary. Yet for me, it’s one of the most peaceful, heartwarming, and nostalgic hues. If you’re familiar with the traditional darkroom you can guess this is because I’ve spent so many hours under those orange or red lights. To me, this light represents creativity, imagination, and chemical magic. Although it’s been way too many years since I’ve stepped foot into a darkroom, it remains my first love and ultimately the reason I’m still here. Still here writing, discussing, contemplating, sharing, and making photographs. It’s the reason our brand exists.
Thankfully, in the age of digital, there are still photographers experimenting in the darkroom and Jane Olin is one of those folks. Olin has a long history in the community of photography and has studied with some of the biggest influencers of the craft and now has become one herself. We first published some of Olin’s work, Thirteen Crows, in The Matter of Light (Diffusion, Volume VI) and I believe that was my first introduction to her. Thankfully, Ann Jastrab reintroduced us by way of her newest series, Intimate Conversations where Olin has expanded on her darkroom experimentation by creating spontaneous happy accidents with darkroom chemistry and light. In her project statement, Olin points out that trees have a very complex unseen communication system between themselves. Olin’s print process elevates a traditional photograph to a more painterly interpretation and, in turn, allows the trees to visually communicate with the viewer in ways they might organically signal to themselves. The question is not can trees communicate? It’s really… who’s listening?
Cheers to Jane Olin for a beautiful series and her recent successes, some of which I’ve detailed below.
–Blue Mitchell @onetwelveprojects
Important links
On Display: In the Company of Trees by Jane Olin at NUMU New Museum of Los Gatos, through June 5, 2022
On Display: Trees Stir in Their Leaves at Center for Creative Photography through July 23, 2022
NUMU’s artist talk with Jane Olin
Recent interview by Aline Smithson with Olin on Lenscratch
Intimate Conversation
My relationship with trees began in childhood, while playing under the majestic Douglas Firs near my home in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve loved trees ever since, so it was a natural progression to turn to them as a subject for my newest work, Intimate Conversation. I have also been inspired by the books The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben and Finding the Mother Tree by Dr. Suzanne Simard. In these books, I discovered that trees create interdependent relationships through underground fungal networks, exchanging nutrients and chemical information in support of their seedling offspring and other neighboring trees. Working from this perspective, I strive to make images that invite deeper speculation into the nature of trees and that emphasize their individuality, complexity, and imposing presence. The world as we know it would not exist without them, and I want to convey this kinship in my work.
To create my photographs, I work in a traditional wet darkroom with negatives. I use chemicals in unorthodox ways, letting the developing process takes precedence over preconceived ideas. This technique gives me the freedom to explore the limits of analog printing and take advantage of whatever chance events may occur. I have no interest in making or even enhancing images with a computer; the wet darkroom is where I thrive. It’s exhilarating (and at times challenging) to work in a liminal space that requires moment-by-moment and often intuitive decision-making. I enlarge and print my finished gelatin silver prints digitally—my sole nod to the digital revolution. For me, process printing means maintaining a fearless attitude towards an unknowable outcome and finding pleasure in creating in the moment.
–Jane Olin
All images are pigment prints made from unique gelatin silver prints
[clicking on a thumbnail will bring up a lightbox]
About the Artist
Jane Olin has worked as a photographer in California’s Monterey Bay area for over thirty years. Living at the epicenter of West Coast photography, she learned the skills of “straight” photography and tenets of the historic Group f/64 from many of the assistants and students of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Since that time she has gone on to develop a distinctly personal vision, exploring the limits of focus and composition with a pinhole camera and darkroom enlarger, and over the last several years, with the gelatin silver developing process itself.
Raised in Steilacoom, overlooking Puget Sound in Washington State, Olin grew up surrounded by forests. She has traveled extensively, and is especially drawn to Japan–both its aesthetics and its Zen Buddhism. She maintains a mindfulness practice, and present moment awareness is embedded in her photographic process. Her choice of subject originates in internal questioning, personal experience, and often relies heavily on intuition. She works in series of related images, a method that allows for extended explorations of her subject.
In recent years, Olin‘s work has been the subject of group and solo exhibitions at the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, all in California. In 2022, her solo exhibition In The Company of Trees runs at NUMU New Museum Los Gatos, CA, from January 14 through June 5. She is also included in a group exhibition, Trees Stir in Their Leaves, a collaboration with the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ. She has won numerous juror awards, including a 2021 IPA International Photography Award Best of Show. Her work is held in the collections of Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, and NUMU New Museum Los Gatos all in California. A lifelong champion of women in the arts, Olin founded Salon Jane, a women’s photography collective, in 2014.
janeolin.com
@jane_olin
salonjane.com
About the author
Blue makes stuff sometimes. Bluemitchell.com
And has nice conversations with people other times. Diffusiontapes.com