Auction: Jane Tam, Yijun Liao, Erin Patrice O'Brien & Others

Lau Fau San Temple, Hong Kong, from Asleep at Sea ©Jane Tam

Art from the Heart Benefit Auction
(works by Jane Tam, Yijun Liao, Erin Patrice O'Brien & Others)
Galleries at Calumet Photographic
22 West 22nd St
New York, NY
Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 7:00pm - 10:00pm

(from the Vanderbilt Foundation)
The Vanderbilt Foundation's mission is to increase public awareness of critical arts, cultural, and human rights organizations. The Foundation does this by producing commercial-grade photography shoots with the industry’s most diverse and innovative working creatives. The VRF provides partner organizations renewed publicity through large-scale photography exhibitions, workshops, publications, and the World Wide Web.

This "Art from the Heart" Project is a fundraiser that will support the "Masters" project in Cambodia.

This fall, The Vanderbilt Republic Foundation (VRF), in an unprecedented partnership with Arn Chorn-Pond and Cambodian Living Arts, will devote four weeks to rigorously documenting the lives of these Cambodian performing masters in a manner their stories deserve and with an approach that honors and celebrates their significance in our world. Acclaimed large-format portrait photographer Geroge Del Barrio will lead a unique team of American artists deeply inspired by and connected to Arn and the CLA's narrative. The team will craft life-sized portraits of the masters, their students, their instruments and the world they inhabit, all at the highest professional standard. They'll print and present this work at life-size, to fully describe the extreme realities of these survivors—in traveling exhibitions throughout the world and internet. A higher-education lecture series, based on this body of work, is planned. And in addition, a feature-length, broadcast-quality film of the entire process will be created, focusing on the perspective of the masters as they collaborate with the American team. What will transpire is a beautiful story about the arts renaissance in Cambodia today and with your help we can make this project a reality.

A Conversation with Erin Patrice O'Brien

© Erin Patrice O'Brien

A few years ago when I worked as a freelance photo-editor I first came across the work of Erin Patrice O'Brien and I really like the energy in her book.

The following interview makes clear that the energy I saw in her pictures is a reflection of Erin herself.

© Erin Patrice O'Brien

Nymphoto: Tell us about yourself.

Erin Patrice O'Brien: I live in Brooklyn with my husband Pablo and my daughter Maya. MostlyI work for different editorial magazines and ad agencies specializing in portraits. I tend to do about half celebrities and the other half more reportage style portraits of real people. We spend part of the year in Buenos Aires where Pablo is from and I try to improve my Spanish. I have always loved photographing my family. I come from a big Irish-American family and they have always been an inspiration for me. I have always loved traveling and have lived and visited so many different countries.

© Erin Patrice O'Brien

NP: How did you discover photography?

EPOB: I studied fashion design at Drexel University and took lots of classes in photography. After a brief internship in fashion I realized I hated it and wanted to concentrate on photography.

I moved to NYC in 1995 after shooting weddings for 2 years for a totally conservative photo studio in Pennsylvania. I wanted to assist photographers whose work I liked but I really didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning. I worked for a lot of photographers. Eventually I assisted some people who were doing good work. I spent all of my free time shooting and printing for my book. I felt like I lived at Printspace. I learned everything technical from assisting other people and eventually figuring it out myself.

© Erin Patrice O'Brien

NP: Where do you find inspiration?

EPOB:I have always been inspired by people who I think are doing something positive for the world. On the project I just finished, (Mamás Adolescentes: NYC 2006-2007) I was greatly inspired by Dr. Yvette Martas who was the obstetrician for the girls.

On a basic level I’d say that I’m inspired by light, color and movement. And more than anything I love to laugh. I love people who are funny. I’m inspired when the person I’m photographing is relaxed and having fun. I have ended up photographing a lot of comedians.

I am fascinated by any kind of counterculture Especially people who define themselves and their group visually. I would love to photograph an FLDS polygamist family or a gypsy family in Argentina. Any kind of ritual or uniform is always interesting to me.

Other inspirations have been the work of Mira Nair, Wes Andersen, David La Chapelle, David Hockney, Helmut Newton, Peggy Sirota, Cleo Sullivan, Livia Corona, Chris Buck, Martin Parr,

Elaine Constantine, Nan Goldin, Diane Arbus and Brenda Ann Kenneally.

My husband Pablo has always been a great inspiration for me. He’s a musician and we are constantly coming up with new ways to shoot

his band for posters and albums. He has an offbeat sense of humor.

From The Mamás Adolescentes: NYC 2006-2007 project © Erin Patrice O'Brien

NP: How do your projects come about?

EPOB: The Mamás Adolescentes: NYC 2006-2007 project came about because I wanted to do a long term project. I had just had Maya . My idea of what it would be like to have a child versus the reality were very different. I wanted to know what it was like for a teenager. I had help and a career and even with that it was overwhelming for the first year. My doctor introduced me to the head of the Adolescent Clinic at Bellevue. I have found with photography that sometimes it’s just meeting the right person. Before meeting Dr. Martas, I had approached organizations but people were very wary of me. Nowadays there are so many privacy issues. I would go to the clinic every Monday that I wasn’t working and hang out and meet the girls. I convinced them to let me come to their homes and photograph them there. I wasn’t interested in the hospital setting. I started with about 10 different teenagers. Some were American and some were Mexican. I had to adapt to their schedules with no expectations. Many times I would show up at an arranged time and they wouldn’t be there. Or I would have to wait an hour while they took a shower.

I decided to present the work in a book format online. I worked with an Argentine web designer, Maria Onis. Even though I love books in print I felt like more people would see it online. For the gallery show we did really big prints and I went back and interviewed the girls. Their babies are now two. For the most part they are all having a pretty hard time. For so long I was working away at this project alone with the help of my assistants. In the end I met some great writers, Yesenia Ruiz and Franziska Castillo who helped with the interviews and gave me a greater understanding of some of the more linguistic nuances I was missing with the Spanish.

From The Mamás Adolescentes: NYC 2006-2007 project © Erin Patrice O'Brien

NP:What's next?

EPOB:I just returned from Argentina and am really interested in the online teen culture which is developing there. I plan to return in the early winter to start a new project of photographing these kids.

NP: Thank you so much!

To see more of Erin's work please visit her website: www.erinpatricobrien.com.

Erin Patrice O'Brien Opening

(Via Whats the Jackanory?)

Tonight is the opening reception for Erin Patrice O'Brien's "Mamás Adolescentes: NYC 2006-2007"

A photo exhibition that chronicles two years in the lives of Mexican-American teenage mothers in Brooklyn, NY. The photos in this exhibit are windows into a world that is largely hidden. They tell the story of Fanny, Elizabeth, Maria, Gina and Yolanda when there is no one else to tell it for them.

On View: Saturday, August 16 - Saturday, August 24, 2008

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 16, 2008 4-7pm

Artist Panel Discussion: Saturday, August 16, 3-4pm.

Moderator: Yesenia Ruiz, PhD Candidate, Anthropology

Panel: Dr. Yvette Martas, former Director of the Adolescent OB/Gyn Clinic at Bellevue Hospital, Franziska Castillo, former Contributing Editor of Latina Magazine and Public Relations Manager from El Museo del Barrio and Erin Patrice O'Brien, photographer. Curated by Nina Ziefvert.

Danny Simmons’ Corridor Gallery, 334 Grand Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11238

After the birth of her own daughter in 2005, Photographer Erin O’Brien was struck by how overwhelming motherhood could be and wanted to know how being a mom felt to those barely into adulthood themselves. Dedicated to documenting the situation Erin contacted Dr. Yvette Martas, head of the Bellevue Hospital Adolescent OBGYN clinic, who in 2005 introduced her to Fanny, 14, Elizabeth , 15, years , Maria, 18, Gina, 16, and Yolanda, 17. After that Erin met with the girls on a regular basis and photographed the girls’ during their pregnancies and for up to a year after their babies’ births. Many of the girls are first generation immigrants, with limited knowledge of English, in search of new lives, but instead have wound up in tenement apartments they share with other families. Cut off from school and friends, they are dependant on their younger siblings or roommates to translate for them, and caring for their babies alone all day often results in isolation. “Erin made these young women feel important by validating their lives by photographing them when the whole society ignores them”, says Dr. Yvette Martas.

The teen pregnancy rate among Latinas is nearly twice the national average, and rising. According to the Latino Initiative’s National Campaign, the birth rate for Latinas aged 15-19 increased in 16 of 37 reporting states and the District of Columbia between 1990 and 2005. Source: www.thenationalcampaign.org