Poignant Portfolio no. 41: Molly McCall
From the Editor
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, shall we? As a person and artist, Molly McCall is a favorite around these parts. She has appeared in Analog Forever Magazine, Catalyst: Interviews, and Diffusion Annual – all outlets that show, promote, and emphasize photographic creatives and creativity.
Now she’s here on Poignant Portfolios, and in order to illustrate her work once again as a visual support component for her appearance on The Diffusion Tapes podcast. Apparently, Blue Mitchell and I have been sending up flares for a while now. Oh damn – I didn’t think we worked for her, but maybe we do!
Honestly, though, it’s simply a love for her work and the fact that she makes thought-provoking imagery and, well, never seems to stop. There’s always something new or ongoing that she is up to her neck on. Even when I approached her about her new series that we’d show here today, there was NEW new work that she had thought we were showing instead. There’s literally so much she’s doing that we can’t even keep up. As a fan, gallery, or collector, you’d be pretty damn happy about this, amiright?! In a word? Yes.
So, I’m going to let Molly’s artist statement below do the heavy lifting this time. Still, I do want to put pen to paper on what I see and think about this latest (or second [or third] to the latest) collection of photographs.
Her latest series, Truth Be Told, follows similarly with another body of work I’d shown previously, Remembering the Twilight. Again, there are the triggers to time and memory that happen, but also a marrying of the literary with a contemporary means of making images. The latter series used photographs to illustrate the words of a Yeats poem of the same name. In contrast, the former uses actual vintage book text to explain the images from her iPhone, creating a new further fleshed-out context for both. Truth Be Told may be new to us, but there are familiar hallmarks in this collection that maintain the McCall aesthetic to a tee. Her combining of the latest technology of camera phone imagery with the physical book pages of associated text creates the all too familiar synapses in my brain like her previous bodies of work. She is a master at this, unequivocally.
As I get older, I find that my memories are susceptible to anything now considered vintage. As a purveyor of the “old ways” of doing things, I am still absolutely steeped in new technology, so the combination of the two is especially gratifying to see. McCall is especially adept at creating photographs that are, in many ways, therapeutic. The more I view her work, the more I’ve come to this realization.
After reading this, I implore you to spend some time with these images and then take that to guide you through her other collections. Molly McCall has given us a roadmap to somewhere significant deep in our minds – it’s just up to the individual to determine which on-ramp you wish to take on this journey.
–Michael Kirchoff @michaelkirchoff
Truth Be Told
For my series Truth Be Told, I am continuing with the theme of memory, exploring the intersection between the photographic image and what can be real or imagined, joining these ideas in a new visual context. Within our media-immersed lives, the object of a photograph, once thought of as “evidence,” has been continually challenged by technology, and what was once considered a visual representation of the truth is now a malleable resource much like memory.
For this series I chose random photos from my iPhone presenting a provable record of a specific moment in time that I had directly experienced. Each image in the series is archivally printed over vintage pages taken from books of fiction, juxtaposing the past and the present, romance and reality, fact and fiction. The images are titled with a corresponding alphabetic format, referring to the elementary way in which learning begins with objects, associations, and memory. Inscribed en verso, these titles- a "real-time" chronology documenting the date and time of the photograph, are accompanied by the corresponding alpha letter and word identifying the subject in the image.
“The pictures will not go away,” Susan Sontag wrote. “That is the nature of the digital world in which we live … Up to then, there had been only words, which are easier to cover up in our age of infinite digital self-reproduction and self-dissemination, and so much easier to forget.”
When I paired the two opposing ideas of fact and fiction, the photos with text revealed dynamic nuances that were unfamiliar to me although they were my own memories, and I knew I had to explore this contrast further; When I wasn’t finding answers, but more questions, I had to continue exploring this uncharted path.
–Molly McCall
[clicking on a thumbnail will bring up a lightbox]
About the Artist
Born in Monterey, California, Molly McCall was raised along the rugged California coastline of the Monterey Peninsula. Surrounded by infamous photographers, writers, filmmakers, and painters, their work provided an indelible appreciation and awareness for nature and inspired her to pursue a creative career in art and design.
Molly’s earliest influence in art-making came from her great-grandfather, an illustrator for the New York Times, and grandfather, a professional watercolorist in Southern California. She started painting and photography at an early age, and later attended Laguna Beach School of Art to study both mediums.
With a family background in clothing, Molly began her creative career designing textiles and garments with her own label, which were featured in more than 100 specialty boutiques across the US, including Henri Bendel in New York, Fred Segal in Los Angeles, and more than 50 Nordstrom locations, where she was presented with Nordstrom’s Most Favored Designer Award in California. After nearly two decades in the clothing industry, Molly returned to painting and darkroom photography.
mollymccall.com
@molly.mccall.art
About the author
Michael Kirchoff works in the worlds of both commercial and fine art photography. A commercial shooter for over thirty years, it is his fine art work that has set him apart from others, with instant film and toy camera images fueling several bodies of work. His consulting, training, and overall support of his fellow photographic artist continues with assistance in constructing one’s vision, reviewing portfolios, and finding exhibition opportunities, which fill the gaps in time away from active shooting.
Michael is also an independent curator and juror, and advocate for the photographic arts. Currently, he is also Editor-in-Chief at Analog Forever Magazine, and is the Founding Editor for the online photographer interview website, Catalyst: Interviews. Previously, Michael spent over four years as Editor at BLUR magazine.
Most recently Michael joined the Diffusion Tapes podcast as co-host.