A Tree Grows in a Stone

Jenny Rice July 12, 2026

Considering my obsessions with omens and bright, shiny things (I may have been a raven in a past life, or more likely, a magpie), it’s little surprise to me that while residing in the Treasure State (Montana), I go about looking only at the ground and filling my pockets with rocks. And I’ve even been so inspired as to dive headlong into the dazzling world of gemstones and the science behind amulets, omens, and good luck charms. You read that right; the science behind good luck charms. (Have I lost my mind? Yes, of course. Read on.) I know what some of you are thinking; but I swear to you, it is not all woo-woo! There is science behind the colors and compounds with which we adorn our bodies and homes; the trinkets and charms we carry in our pockets and hang in our our windows and doorways and cars; the encounters that send chills up our spines or remind us of the people and animals we love. If you care to join me, I started a new Substack, where I will be exploring the aforementioned subjects and offering free content plus a paid tier called Agate of the Month. Want polished dendritic agates mailed to your door every month? All you have to do is subscribe and provide your mailing address and voila, Stones of Protection, at your service. (Did you know agates protect you from schemers? I read this in a book somewhere.) Lastly, you can buy dendritic moss agates and petrified wood from the Yellowstone River at my Etsy Store. I’m just getting started, so it’s not terribly exciting yet, but I currently offer polished and raw stones in their natural shapes/forms, with more to come once I get some more tools.

If you’ve been following me for all these years and you’re wondering where I’m at with my photography, here’s an update: My photography has gone nowhere recently. I have some projects in mind but the inspiration to start on them hasn’t struck. Until then, photo-taking is taking a temporary backseat while I focus on completing my novel, which is a BEAR of a project that’s taking me FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER. Seriously, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided I wanted to become a novelist. Forget writing a dissertation that was over 400 pages, writing a novel has been a bonkers. My novel draft is a grizzly bear who wants to cache me someplace so I ferment nicely.

I’m convinced all novelists are nutjobs. If you ever meet a novelist who doesn’t come off as at least partly coocoobananas, they’re just doing a good job of hiding it. Personally, I am fully coocoobananas and not bothering to hide it because what is the point? (But wasn’t it always a bit tenuous? My exes will all say YES.) I’ve been working on my novel draft for about five or six or seven years and it’s still in Choose-Your-Own-Adventure mode (only not nearly so good as those books). My manuscript is a mess. I’ve changed the genre, plot, and theme. Every once in a while I off my eleven-year-old protagonist just for fun. I am making progress, but it’s the progress that’s akin to Mercury Retrograde because it gives the illusion of moving backwards, and because it’s confusing and confounding and messy and causes me to stub my toes and drop things. I tell myself it’s taken me this long because I’ve needed to spend all of this time following my little protagonist through her world, discovering the adventures that are truly hers. (We shall see.)

Thanks for checking in!

P.S. My original Instagram feed was deleted due to nudity. What did they expect from me?? I reopened it a while back but I’m sticking with animals instead of boobies. I realize for some of you this may be disappointing. Sorry. You can still find me at @j_e_n_n_y_r_i_c_e.

P.P.S. You can also follow me on my personal Substack, which I promise to actually start using: thespinonjenny.

shitting behind a bush and other things you talk about at gallery openings

Jenny Rice May 18, 2019

I attended the combined opening ceremony for the 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers and 12th Pollux Awards at Galeria Valid Foto in Barcelona this May 2019. As an exhibiting artist in both awards, and my second year in a row to receive the JMC Award, it was an honor to come this second time to Barcelona. It felt a bit like coming home, and fitting that it did… because after spending the winter in Europe I had come full circle, and now in the weeks following the exhibition, preparing to return to the United States. My first time in Barcelona, last October, was my first time exhibiting photography at an international show. I arrived in the city roughly twenty-four hours before the opening, after weeks and weeks (well, let’s face it, years) of insane stress in my personal life leading up to my departure. When I got there I promptly put my dog and I to bed in the windowless attic room I had rented and woke up again fourteen hours later. Like an idiot, I had booked a place that was cheap and cute but was half an hour by metro from the exhibition in a city where I had never been, with a language I didn’t speak, and traveling with a dog. I was so disoriented and jet-lagged that it took me three hours to find where the event was taking place and I arrived two hours late for the opening. I felt so sorry for Luna, because it became clear to me then that dogs do, indeed, experience jet-lag, that I bought her tin after tin of Spanish sardines to make up for it.

This second time to Barcelona, Luna and I arrived by boat… a twenty-hour ferry ride from Civitavecchia, Italy. Luna did not relieve herself for the entire sailing, so….the next time your kids claim they have to pee every fifteen minutes of a two-hour car ride, you can tell them about my dog. And unlike your kids, Luna rarely complains, so we slept straight through like little stowaways despite the hoards of young and hormonal Italian men getting drunk, singing at the tops of their lungs and collapsing in giggling heaps in the hallways all night long. But perhaps my brain just plain associates Barcelona with extreme fatigue because I still felt odd waves of exhaustion as I rolled my overstuffed suitcase from the marina to the room I had intelligently rented just blocks from the gallery. The next morning I woke up with a migraine…my second one in the eight months I had been in Europe. I used to get migraines all the time. So often, in fact, that there was a point in my life when I had more days with a migraine than days when I didn’t have one. I also suffered from chronic insomnia…and even as a child was known to pull batteries out of ticking clocks and curl inside kitchen cupboards in my efforts to find dark and quiet places to sleep. In Europe it seems all I do is sleep. I sleep all night…and then sometimes I sleep during the day. This is a totally new Jenny. And it’s an actual miracle, because I can’t really explain why, suddenly, my circadian rhythms stopped popping speed and starting smoking pot instead. But interestingly, when I took a two week trip to visit a friend in Ireland over the holidays I didn’t sleep more than an hour out of each night I was there. Ireland, with its curling-eyebrow curmudgeons, weepy grey skies, and green moss and green mud and green grassy dune landscape reminded me so much of my birthplace on San Juan Island, WA I could have mistaken it for home. If you think it’s impossible to go two weeks on 14 hours of sleep, I will tell you that not only did I go two weeks on fourteen hours of sleep but my friends told me I looked remarkably fresh and “not tired.” But on my first night back in Europe I hit my pillow in Paris like I’d been smacked really hard on the back of the head. I’m convinced now that I fell back into the familiar pattern of insomnia when I hit ground on a familiar island landscape. My advice to people everywhere is this: if you feel like you’re spinning your wheels in bumfuck nowhere and someone has the nerve to chime in unhelpfully with “wherever you go, there you are,” you can just tell them to take their self-righteous cliche and shove it because the world works in mysterious ways and sometimes you were just born in the wrong place.

It’s understandable, then, that the sensories that greeted me upon my return to Spain were good reason to feel a little doom for what I was going home to in June. And Barcelona is a confusing city to be in if you can’t match the energy of its quirky, upbeat vibe. Having a migraine in Barcelona made me feel like I wanted to die. But a very reasonable thing about Europe is that they sell 600mg Ibuprofen at the pharmacies and you don’t need a prescription. So Luna and I arrived at the photography exhibition not long after they opened the doors and by that time, The Migraine had decided to subside. The great thing about international exhibitions is that all of your printing, matting, and framing details are worked out far in advance… so all you have to do is show up and find out where they hung your work. I like to stroll in off the street like a visitor and pretend I don’t know anybody… which is easy, because I don’t and I’m always attending alone.

From my series: Landscape of the Lounge with my Thousand-Pound Hounds

In the 12th JMC Award I was recognized in the non-professional categories of Women Seen by Women, Portrait, Self-Portrait, and Nature. And in the 12th Pollux Awards I was recognized in the professional categories of Nature and Nude Figure. With a combined total of more than twenty photos in the awards, printing and framing the entire lot would have been cost-prohibitive, not to mention the battle of schlepping so many photos home with me after the show, so I chose two from a series that I especially wanted to see in print, and called it good.

At the time of this article I have been recognized in a total of six international awards for photography and the crazy thing is… when I show up for the ceremonies I instantly feel like I don’t belong. I actually try to get through the evening without being noticed as an exhibiting artist. Forget asking a stranger to take my photo next to my photos. Just… no. It’s like reliving my first day of kindergarten the moment I walk through the door. Like…if I don’t make eye contact, maybe nobody will even notice me and I won’t have to talk at all. My awkwardness only increases as I slowly realize I am the only person there unaccompanied by another human. Since I’ve done everything by myself since about age one you’d think I’d be used to this by now but I’m not. Let me tell you something ladies…single women in their thirties are not as common on this side of the pond and people assume there’s something off about you if you show up to events on your own. It doesn’t help much that European women are obsessed with beauty and always dressed to the nines with high heels, pantyhose, hair extensions, collagen lip injections, and full makeup jobs. They attend gallery debuts with husbands on their arms and designer dogs in their handbags. Meanwhile…no matter how nicely I wash my hair or make certain I wear underwear I still manage to look like I just crawled out of a borrowed tent after six weeks of camping. And it’s only when I go to these gallery openings and watch the happy couples and friends and family members all celebrating together that my normally confidently single and stubborn and independent American self feels like the awkward teenaged loner I never really grew out of.

But as per her nature, Luna made short work of my shortcomings in friend-making and perused the patrons for pets whilst I humbled myself with all the amazing photography from artists all over the world. The vivid, gritty and yet somehow still tender Americana captured in the portraiture by Kennady Schneider brought me back to her photos several times that evening. And a three-part series of self-portraiture by Harper Bella and her American flag was so familiar and beautiful and strong that my breath caught in my throat when I saw her there, elegantly in person aside from her photos.

The strikingly beautiful face of African youth in a color portrait by Erika Blanco is so lovely in its simplicity that its watery sunshine on brown skin made my eyes watery, too.

Liza Botkin’s single black and white image of double mannequins in the bathroom mirror caught my eye from across the room with its incredible composition and eerie emotion… I can relate, somehow, to those mannequins and it makes me uneasy.

And Yoshie Nishikawa’s nude figure portraiture from Japan with subjects as delicate as porcelain dolls is more exquisite than I could ever describe in words. Which is the trouble with trying to write about an art form that’s purely visual. It doesn’t really work that way and neither do my cell phone photos of their photos. For pete’s sake people… if you want to appreciate art… support an artist, buy their work, and go to their art shows.

When Luna and I left Galeria Valid Foto that evening, the sun had set over Barcelona in a great big bloom of pink and purple plumes. We slipped through the soft spring air of the busy city streets and I felt happy, after all, that I had made the journey again to this part of the world to see my photos displayed on a special wall. For as much as I fein being tortured, I am extremely honored to be recognized for my work in photography with these prestigious awards. The process is both uplifting and humbling….and each time hard for me to believe my work wasn’t chosen by mistake. How many awards will it take before I am convinced that I am not a perpetual fluke-in-the-making?

I’m not certain that’s why I keep answering the calls for entries. I’ve said before that artists serve their hearts on platters for all of humanity to feed from. And to be recognized for it confirms that there is indeed humanity out there, receiving. But on an even deeper level, I believe art to be the most fundamental expression of humankind; and as crucial to culture as oxygen to breathing. And just like the lungs of a great collective creature, artists process the essence of being, and express for us translations of the obvious and mysterious, the weird and the ordinary, the exuberant and exhausted, the laughter and anguish and joy and sadness in languages we needn’t learn for we were already born with the knowing. This personal inward journey of the artist made public through the process of sharing art is about as traditional as making a campfire and shitting behind a bush. Only, perhaps more like shitting behind a bush and then telling stories about it around the campfire. Either way… it goes way back. And perhaps why I needn’t chide myself for showing up at gallery openings looking like I’ve just been camping.

For more information about The Photography Gala Awards and how you get involved, please see their website at: https://www.thegalaawards.com/

In the 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Award, a total of 760 photographers from 72 countries submitted 5,800 photographs that were considered by jurors Julia Fullerton-Batten, Andrea Star-Reese, and Laura Pannock.

In the 12th Pollux Awards, a total of 682 photographers from 67 countries submitted 4,220 photographs for consideration by juror Phillip Brookman.

Selected works from both awards is exhibited at Galeria Valid Foto in Barcelona, Spain May 8 - 24, 2019. To see the entire results galleries, please refer to the following links:

The 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Award: https://www.thegalaawards.com/results-of-the-12-jmca
The 12th Pollux Awards: https://www.thegalaawards.com/results-12th-pollux-awards

From left to right: photographer Saskia Bruinsma (Netherlands) with her photos, dead animals by Anne-Grethe Henriksen (Norway), portraiture by Kate Stanworth (United Kingdom), abstract black and white by Viky Garden (New Zealand).

13th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers

Jenny Rice April 29, 2019

I've been recognized in the 13th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Women Photographers... my third year in a row receiving this award, and invited to exhibit work in Barcelona this October 2019 at the Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography. Out of 795 photographers from 71 countries who submitted a total of 5,610 photographs, the following seven photos received Honorable Mention from juror Elisabeth Biondi in the categories of Nature (donkeys), Children (boy on the dunes), and Self-Portrait (my nude-a-day photos from Split, Croatia!!). You can see the entire gallery of awardees here: https://www.thegalaawards.com/results-13th-julia-margaret-cameron-award It feels great to be recognized three years in a row in this prestigious and inspiring award... especially for work I've produced within this year. It gives me a much-needed sense of artistic self-esteem to know that my abilities as a photographer are not just a fluke of timing, but rather... a skill that only sharpens from the attentiveness I give to it. And I feel grateful for these European awards committees who took notice of me from the beginning. Now I just need to branch out ;)

faces from budapest to the balkans

Jenny Rice March 18, 2019

Between January and March 2019 I followed a family of digital nomads, from America, as they slow-traveled between several locations in Central Europe. What fascinated me more than the culture and history of the places I visited was this growing population of people who are opting out of the American Dream in favor of a nomadic lifestyle overseas, much like me. This album of twenty portraits includes some of my favorite captures of the people who helped me understand what it means to be a resident of nowhere, successfully. Including my dog, Luna, who travels with me and who, in her pureness of heart, is the best example I could follow of someone who is home anywhere that offers free food and plenty of love.

housing the nomadic mind

Jenny Rice March 15, 2019

I’ve often wondered if all modern-day afflictions can be blamed on the fact that our lifestyles change faster than evolution can keep up with. That if only we could evolve as fast as Galapagos birds do, we wouldn’t have so many issues. Mental illness, obesity, heart disease, immune disorders, and cancer would be tidily eliminated within a single generation’s inferno of DNA. And with them, rates of drug addiction, suicide, homicide, and violence would plummet to the point of non-existence. For where is the need for such self-destruction in a species that adapts itself to the biology of the future in the mere blink of an eye? But as large mammals, our life spans are too long and our reproduction too slow to accommodate the kind of rapid re-writing our species would need to wipe out the diseases that have plagued us since the dawn of modern time. And though the study of epigenetics tells us that our DNA is indeed dynamic and modifiable and influenced by environment and lifestyle choices… evolution itself happens for us too slowly to see with our watery mammalian eyes and emotional psyches. It takes many thousands of years, in fact, for major biological changes to occur in most of earth’s large creatures. And a good thing, lest we breed ourselves to extinction faster than any disease might replicate itself so rapidly.

And yet, in the mere 100,000 years since the first Homo sapiens stood up and started using their thumbs, humans have been on a roller coaster of rapid adaptation. Starting with the advent of agriculture, the need for our species to adapt to changes in lifestyle has intensified dramatically during times of war and advances in industry and technology. And the faster these advances happen, the faster we have to adapt. But how fast is too fast? At what point does society collapse because it cannot adapt to changes so rapidly? We witness this in populations all over the world, and the most obviously devastating is when it’s a result of natural disasters. But sometimes the symptoms of collapse sneak up on us slowly, and in societies that are otherwise success stories. The United States, for example, seems headstrong in its trend of economic disparity. For one-percent of Americans, life is a cakewalk; for ninety-nine percent, a struggle. A wealthy country with statistics weighted in poverty, in which the number of citizens lacking access to basic resources increases faster than bureaucracy acts to mitigate it.

And a growing population of would-be middle-class Americans are adapting to this, too. They’re living in their cars, they’re moving overseas, they’re becoming part of a new generation of digital nomads. The number of people forfeiting their U.S. passports is on the rise as well. For some it’s an alternative career choice, for many, a survival strategy. Computer programmers, coders, gamers, editors and writers, are realizing the ritual of the cubicle doesn’t have to be it. And neither does the rent you can’t afford to pay, in the city where you can’t afford to eat, where you’re not allowed to park the car you live in either. There’s a reason why companies like Google have implemented showers, communal kitchens, nap rooms, and free parking. They’re aware of the fact that a growing percentage of their full-time employees can’t afford the housing in the city where they work. But many question the lifestyle… whether it’s sustainable over the long term, and what the impacts might be on the U.S. economy and the global economy if the population of essentially homeless full-time workers continues to increase.

The modern American nomad is nothing new, of course. Freelance artists, musicians, RV-ers, tradesmen, circus performers, farm workers, poor people, and hippies have been doing this for a long time. Life on the road is part of our culture, for better or worse, and I myself am one of these people. I grew up in a family that moved a lot; we never owned the houses we lived in and could scarcely afford to pay rent. When I was seventeen I left home to hitchhike around the world with my best friend. Our first stop was New Zealand, about as far away as we could get from our hometown on one plane ticket. I didn’t stop traveling for nearly a decade. I lived out of a backpack, then I lived in my car, until I got a job as a traveling nanny for a wealthy couple who owned homes all over the country. In my thirties I tried to be serious and settle down. I invested in property and started a business, only to lose it all in an easement lawsuit filed by neighbors. I don’t look back on my life with regrets, but I have certainly learned the hard way that life rarely turns out like you expect. So I went back to school at thirty-six to pursue journalism and took my studies overseas after winning an international award for photography. When I came to Europe I discovered I was one of many Americans doing a similar thing… slow-traveling from one city to the next, working remotely from wherever it was most affordable to live and offered a visa. Digital Nomads became a recognizable “type” in my Tinder feed and indeed, the app would blow up with them whenever I ventured through cities with nomad hubs and communal work areas. They seemed really bubbly and outgoing and keen to connect in comparison to the types I tend to meet at home. And not in an annoying way… but in an emotionally-available kind of way. Like, they actually wanted to meet me in person, face to face, the exact same day we matched…totally unheard of in my home of depressed introverts, Washington State. However, it also dawned on me that their keenness to connect could just be because they’re lonely - the most common complaint amongst those who attempt the lifestyle long-term.

But not all digital nomads are singular creatures. In Hungary I reunited with a childhood friend who has been living the lifestyle with her family for a number of years. Leah and her husband, their daughter (turning eighteen soon), Leah’s younger brother (legally disabled, in his late twenties), and their father (partially-retired seaman from Port Hadlock, WA, in his early 70s), all live and travel together as a family unit. After their mom died they gave up apartment life, starting living in tents and camping. Soon after, they purchased an RV. Leah’s husband is a code writer; his job allows him to work entirely from home and still support his family. And once they stopped paying high rent fees, they could afford to live more freely. It was on their first cruise to Europe that they discovered how attainable a nomadic lifestyle overseas could be and it made them question why they should return to the States at all. Not long after they landed at home, they decided to go back. They put their RV in storage and boarded a boat to the U.K. That was three years ago, and they haven’t been home since. America, with its skyrocketing housing costs and toxic political environment, seemed a dead-end street. Life overseas got better and better the longer they stayed away. Family health ailments like allergies and chronic stomach aches have disappeared without medication. Leah’s daughter, who is autistic, started making eye contact with strangers for the first time since she was a baby….which in itself a huge success story. They’re slow travelers, and typically stay one month in each location… booking their housing far ahead of time and for long enough to get a monthly discount. When I met up with them they were living in a large home just outside of the city of Budapest. Since then I’ve been tagging along… at the time of this article I’ve followed their family from Budapest to three different cities in The Balkans: Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, and Kotor, Montenegro.

There are so many things about Leah’s family that fascinate and endear me. They do not fit the description of typical digital nomads and when I asked, they said they do not identify themselves as such. Most digital nomads travel individually, or with a partner… but rarely an entire family of two generations and grown siblings. Yet they are successfully living a nomadic lifestyle overseas and supporting themselves remotely. And unlike so many, they never feel lonely. I think what strikes me is this notion that they’ve totally figured it out. That for Leah’s family, the digital nomad lifestyle is sustainable. Which is good, because they don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. In fact, with the exception of Leah’s father who returns to Port Hadlock for seasonal work, everyone in their family agrees… they never want to go back.

Their unique story got me thinking about our nomadic history as a species, and made me wonder if humans aren’t innately nomadic creatures, forced into life in one place with agriculture and industry. To understand the digital nomad culture, I spent many hours listening to a podcast called Become Nomad by Eli David, an Israeli who describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur and a Nomad changing locations.” In an episode titled “Fears of starting to live as nomads and Hippies spending tax money,” Eric, a remarkably eloquent listener, wrote in with the following:

“When I look back on my life and think of all the times I was happiest, they do seem to be after a major environmental change happened. The in-between parts seem to dilute the overall richness of my life.”

I listened to Eric’s words, and immediately thought I had come to a profound truth: that humans are supposed to live the nomadic life. That it’s in our DNA to move, slowly, from place to place and that settled life is in itself the bane of our very existence. After all, mental illnesses that plague humans are rare in the animal world, except in those animals who have been captured, domesticated, or otherwise forced into an unnatural environment. Rather than the maddening circles of settled life, the nomadic lifestyle keeps things fresh and interesting; you’re always packing up and moving to a new place. You never get bored with where you’re at. Depression and anxiety diminishes, because when you’re traveling in countries with low cost of living, you can work a lot less and enjoy a higher quality of life. But when I started asking people if they thought humans were innately nomadic, 100% of eleven digital nomads (including every member of Leah’s family) said no. Cristen, a woman in her thirties whom I met in Budapest where she was teaching English and working remotely, told me that not only does she not think humans are innately nomadic, but that the lifestyle of constantly moving actually throws you out of balance and worsens mental health issues. Her greatest challenges as a nomad has been a constant feeling of loneliness, difficulty maintaining routines, making friends, and dating men. Her opinion is that the lifestyle is not sustainable long term unless you have a partner, friends, or family that do it with you. This made me think about my own experience, and the fact that I travel with my dog, which means I am never truly alone. But looking back on past relationships, and how quickly they went sour as soon as we were on the road… I seriously question whether I could be happily nomadic alongside a romantic partner. I am intensely independent. Former boyfriends commonly complained that it was always my way or the highway, using the exact phrase. And often the solution really was the highway, but not for them… for me.

Luna and I sleeping on the deck of the ferry from Italy to Croatia.

Julianna - Leah’s daughter (above, right, below)

Leah having her makeup done at a salon - Kotor

When I was in Split, Croatia, I met a Spaniard who lives the nomadic lifestyle very courageously. Jan, a thirty-five year old, left his home in Barcelona about nine months ago, crossed Europe by foot and ventured into The Balkans two months before we crossed paths in Split. Jan supports his lifestyle and adventure endeavors by seeking sponsors and promoting himself on social media. A nomad of the truest form, he walks the earth individually, sleeping wherever he’s sleepy and eating whenever he’s hungry, on a budget of 10 Euros a day. He told me that when he feels lonely he watches nature documentaries in his tent on his tablet and when he has reception he calls home and talks to his family. More than fifteen people have traveled to meet him during this tour, some spending as long as a week walking with him. (I told him he’s apparently very popular… because despite being gone for six months, I can’t get a single one of my friends or family members to come visit me, and I even offered to buy one of my sisters a plane ticket). After Jan left Split, he caught up with me in Dubrovnik, and then again in Kotor. His low-impact mode of travel inspires me. In a world of fast-paced technology and gridlocked motorways, I admire the temperament of one not keen to move through life in a hurry. Camera and binoculars always at hand, Jan’s goal as a digital nomad is to experience the beauty of the world, and the kindness of strangers, and to share his heart’s eye with whomever’s hearts will follow. I did not ask Jan if he thought all humans are innately nomadic. I did not ask him what he thought about global economics. I let him choose the talking, and was content to hear his happy stories of a beautiful blue planet and the humans who have shown him what a wonderful thing is humanity.

Playing cards with the locals, Kotor, Montenegro

Leah and I in the bathroom of a bar - Kotor, Montenegro.

There is certainly an air of escapism prominent in the modern nomadic, and for good reason. I do not believe the culture would exist without it. People are leaving their homes to escape the norm, the status quo, the rent and mortgage payments, the toxic politics, the glass ceilings. The endless envelope-pushings of bureaucracy. I’ve always despised the cliche “wherever you go, there you are,” because in my own life I’ve seen problems disappear completely just by changing the scenery. I was once stuck fighting a political legal battle for five years in a small town, so believe me when I tell you that the bullshit didn’t dissipate until I got the hell out of dodge. I agree in theory that one cannot run away from oneself, no matter how far or wide one tries. The nutcase is always in the suitcase, so to speak. But I have always believed that a fresh start is possible for anyone willing to firstly freshen their perspective of things... and sometimes that literally means moving to another country. More than once have I up and left comfortable lives with comfortable people in comfortable relationships in favor of the discomforts and uncertainty and singularity of life far from home. I would like to believe that my tendency to escape the norm is… normal? An evolutionary throwback from a time when humans were always on the go. But now I think this is an all-too-easy generalization for a lifestyle that is as individually lived as any other, and perhaps even more so. I got a lot of vague answers to direct questions about the sustainability of the digital nomad life over time. Most people just don’t really know. Regardless, there’s much to be learned from a population of people who come from all over the world, yet have one thing in common… the ability to stand individually, take a strong look at society and say, nope.

on journalism, post-communism, and david duchovny

Jenny Rice February 22, 2019

I went to Budapest on a whim to visit a friend I hadn’t seen since sixth grade. She and her family are part of a growing population of digital nomads who have chosen a life overseas to escape the skyrocketing cost of living in the United States. I had been in Spain for two months, having traveled there to participate in a photography exhibition. On my way to Budapest I spent a week in Paris with friends who had flown there from Seattle for Thanksgiving. My dog and I caught a BlaBlaCar ride to Perpignan, France, stayed overnight in a hotel and took a train to Paris the next day. Luna, my deaf Australian heeler, is allowed on the trains in most European countries.

I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with Paris but that’s exactly what happened. I felt at home in the untidiness of the city itself, charmed by the way Parisians turn old into avante-garde, the way that even garbage on the street seemed to be purposefully strewn there as art. I loved the pensive expressions the French wear with their pea coats… and the fact that I could walk into the fanciest restaurant on a street with my wet dog on a leash and the staff - brisk and stuffy towards me - would get down on their knees to pet Luna and bring her sparkling bowls of bottled water. If Paris were only affordable, I may have never left. Good thing it wasn’t, for I might not have made it to Budapest.

I managed to snag a ride with a Romanian fellow who drove me all the way to Budapest from Paris in one day. Fueled by chocolate croissants, coffee, and Monster energy drinks, Lorenzo the Lead-foot shaved a remarkable three hours off our projected 13-hour drive time and kindly picked me up at my doorstep in Paris under snowy skies at 5:00 am. I stepped out of his car that evening and straight into the arms of my friend Leah. Twenty-four years later and half the world’s distance and we picked up right where we left off. Whereas in sixth grade we were organizing non-permitted bake sales on town sidewalks and donating the money to a local wildlife rehab center… within our first week together in Budapest we broke ground on the formation of an international publication by all-women writers. We named it The F Files, inspired by a giant billboard nearby that advertised David Duchovny’s European music tour. The F Files would be totally unbiased and without political angles.

(Before seeing this billboard, we didn’t even know he was a singer-songwriter).

David Duchovny aside, The F Files represents an alternative to what otherwise seems a fated conundrum. I tell people that I am working towards a degree in journalism but the truth is, I don’t actually want to work as one. I can’t envision myself chasing down stories with notepad and camera and then trying to sell them to publishers. I’m just way too self-absorbed, lazy, and uninterested. Secondly, I question the morality of telling other people’s stories for them. Why send reporters to other countries when you can ask a person who is already living there? After a friend sent me a call for entries posted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and suggested I submit something, I spent the better part of two days reading all of his articles. As an opinion columnist at the top of his league, millions of people worldwide read his words and formulate their own opinions based on what he writes. And what does he write? In my own small and hesitant opinion, irresponsibly biased viewpoints on global issues and blanket statements about dictatorship nations that highlight how utterly American he is. Granted, Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a CNN contributor, and a columnist for the New York Times. And myself? A thirty-eight year old unpublished artist pursuing a bachelor degree for the first time. My opinions hold no weight in the world, but that doesn’t make them unimportant. I left home at age seventeen and have crossed the globe several times. I’ve traveled to dictatorship countries like Turkmenistan, a closed nation where most people can never go. So when I read Kristof’s catch lines such as “If you’re a murderous dictator, this is a joyous time to be alive,”(1) and, “So, I Asked People in Saudi Arabia About Their Mad, Murderous Crown Prince” (2), I felt depressed. What he implies may be true, but how he says it seems uncouth, kindling for the fire that further divides our country and our world.

At the Jewish protest against the falsification of history..

I decided to make my first contribution to The F Files a story about my time in Budapest. And to approach it the way we envision the content of The F Files to be… personal stories written by real people talking to other real people about everyday things. I spent three weeks in the city with Leah’s family soaking up enough dark history in its museums to give me really bad nightmares and using Tinder to meet locals and talk about the political scene. I observed Budapest’s holocaust memorials in stricken contemplation, photographed somber onlookers at a Jewish protest against the falsification of history, and added tears to rainfall on the shoe memorial at the banks of the Danube, an art installation so powerful that months later I still find it difficult to talk about. With political unrest prevalent on nearly every street corner and protesters marching to Parliament nearly every nightfall, it was an exciting time to be in Budapest. I noted the similarities between what’s argued about in Hungary, a post-soviet society under a prime minister whom some say plays the role of mini-dictator vs. what’s argued about in the States; world-power capitalism under a president whom some say behaves like a mini-dictator. Not to mention the unsettling fact that the former adviser to Trump, Steve Bannon, has been hired to advise Hungary’s right wing prime minister Viktor Orban. Orban’s party, Fidesz, is responsible for several recent proposals to Hungarian law that have received opposition. One of which is nicknamed the “slave law;” which will allow employers to require up to 400 hours of overtime per worker per year. Hungary's working class is understandably pissed.

Protest against the falsification of history (above and right).

During communism, it was against the law to express political opinions in public, and I was curious as to what extent this persists in Hungary today. My guide for the free walking tour about Communism became very upset when I snapped a photo of her… despite having been told it was OK to photograph. She accused me of recording a video, and I had to show her the gallery on my phone to prove this wasn’t the case. I felt bad, because I obviously caused her distress. And then she felt bad, and apologized. But her upset stuck with me and I found myself asking Tinder dates questions like… do you agree with the political party in power? Do you think Orban is behaving like a mini-dictator? How much freedom do Hungarians have to express their political opinions in public? One fellow, a half-Jewish half-Catholic video game programmer who has lived in Budapest all his life told me that it’s not individuals the government is worried about, but when they gather with other people who share the same views. If officials find out that a coffee house, bar, or art studio has become a place of interest for those in opposition of Fidesz, they will come in and shut the establishment down, sometimes even condemning perfectly good buildings. Yet Orban received 60% of the vote in the election, and the Fidesz party remains largely unopposed. My programmer date showed me the video of Jozsef Tichy-Racs, a man in a chicken suit who is running in the general election. Not only does he dress like a chicken, but he speaks in chicken, too. Tichy-Racs is running for the Gyor-Moson-Sopron county as part of the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog party, a satirical political group founded in 2006 to mock the right-wing nationalism that’s gaining power in the country.The alternative to Chicken or Fidesz is a radical movement called Force and Determination, comprised mainly of black-clad men who march the streets of Budapest using openly racist language to oppose liberal views and immigration.

Free donuts at the candle lighting ceremony for Hanukkah.

Ester, a political scientist and professor who lives and works in the city generously met me for tea and a fascinating talk about Hungarian politics. I asked her why so many Hungarians are opposed to immigrants… and did she think it has something to do with the agenda of Fidesz to turn Hungary into an illiberal Christian nation? And did she think that some people actually miss communism? And Ester said yes, she believes some people actually miss communism, despite the bad rep it gets, and particularly the older generation. Communism provided stability, predictability, and a sense that the state was working for the people. This is something we don’t have in America. In America, our laws and lawyers and police are there to protect the people from the state. In Europe, the state is put in place to protect the people. Esther said the term illiberal Christian nation is just a political concept… it doesn't mean everyone in Hungary has to be a Christian but that Hungary will be an illiberal nation, following Christian principles. But I wondered what Hungary’s non-Christians thought about this concept… and how will an illiberal Christian nation make room at its table for neighbors in need? Ester said that for the first time in a long time, Hungary’s economy is doing really well. And given its history of tyrannical regimes and political upheaval, many Hungarians simply don’t want to share. They want Hungary to be for Hungarians. And some people take it a step further by implying that even the Jews are not true Hungarians. And that the era in history from when Nazi Germany invaded Hungary in 1944 to the first democratic election in 1990 should be excluded from the story of Hungary’s history because the country was not under Hungarian rule. And as Ester spoke, matter-of-factly, I could only wonder how Hungary’s Jews felt about this.

A ruin bar. These bars are common in Budapest’s District VII, the Jewish quarter, in the ruins of abandoned buildings, stores, or lots.

Close to the end of my time in Budapest I went to see the House of Terror Museum, a government funded installation in the building used as headquarters for the Fascists and Communist Secret Police. Dedicated to “the victims of communism,” the entire building is now a monument to the memory of those held captive, tortured, and executed in the belly of its expanded basement. I found the entire exhibition entirely disturbing, and not in the way I think it’s normally meant to be. In stark contrast to the compassioned intention of the Holocaust Museum, the House of Terror seems to make a spectacle out of the horrors that happened to real people in recent history. Heavy metal music and neon strobe lighting accompanies videos and images of a war-torn city, grisly scenes of bulldozers moving corpses at concentration camps, and Nazis marching along the streets of Budapest with crowds of Hungarians cheering them on. The House of Terror felt like a nightmare playing in real-time, a three-story circus performance run by staff dressed like Nazis themselves. And I wondered about the danger of putting on such a theatrical performance in the name of remembrance. I learned later that many residents of Budapest will not bring visitors to the House of Terror museum, nor tell them where it is. And I can understand why.

The Andrassy Ut House of Terror, the building used as headquarters for the Fascists and Communist Secret Police.

I didn’t learn until after I took this photo that you are not allowed to take photos inside the exhibition.. This tank is life-size.

When I left Budapest, I was happy to go. The Jewish quarter, with its art on every surface and its ruin bars and amazing dating scene (it’s a hipster’s paradise), was certainly an area that grew on me. Luna and I were equally delighted to discover that Budapest is one of the most dog-friendly cities in the world. But I just couldn’t shrug the sensation that its dark history persists… in fact, oozes out of its stone walls and cobbled streets and invades common thinking. My visit to the House of Terror solidified my hunch all along… that Fidesz wants to tuck Budapest’s darker days up its sleeve, only to let them show again when there is a political strategy. That the House of Terror is dedicated to the “victims of communism,” says it all, at least to me. For it seems the problem wasn’t communism, but a bunch of really bad egos and their ability to manipulate the masses into murdering their own people. For I do not think that war crimes can ever be the fault of any one thing. But rather, the consequences of a divided society when both sides become complacent with everyday adversity.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/opinion/trump-dictators-human-rights.html

2. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/430716/So-I-Asked-People-in-Saudi-Arabia-About-Their-Mad-Murderous

VII district street art budapesti

Jenny Rice February 19, 2019

Budapest has long been home to some of the world’s greatest artists, musicians, poets, and writers and it seems fitting for this collective creative energy to seep through the very walls of its buildings to the streets outside. Everywhere in Budapest is art. But most of the city’s street art can be found in the 7th district; the city’s Jewish Quarter. And it certainly lends a lift to the otherwise pervasive dark history of the area. From the tiniest of political protests taking up no more space than a matchbox to murals covering entire outer walls of buildings, the 7th district seems to have art on every surface. I took advantage of Budapest’s free walking tours to learn something about the artists behind the work, and perhaps the insight to understand their messages. I don’t remember everything I learned during the art tour… and the tendency of street art to disappear or be covered with something else makes it hard to find information about it online, but the following photos represent some of the work I saw, with notes in the captions where I could add them :)

The fellow in this photo was our walking tour guide. Although we were not allowed to record video or audio during the tour, photography was OK. I didn’t catch his name… and thinking back on the tour, I’m not sure he actually gave it to us. He did sa… — The fellow in this photo was our walking tour guide. Although we were not allowed to record video or audio during the tour, photography was OK. I didn’t catch his name… and thinking back on the tour, I’m not sure he actually gave it to us. He did say that in his former career he was a lawyer, a common profession in Hungary, but he didn’t make enough money as a lawyer to cover his bills….. so he became a walking tour guide instead, a job that has taken him all over Europe. These tours are free… and available in all of Europe’s major cities. The guides cannot legally charge people for the tours, but they can accept tips. Apparently, in Hungary you make more money taking tips for giving tours than you do charging a rate for legal services.

Artists: Fekete Zsolt and Melka Gabor ; Belvaròs, Vàroshàza Park

The Rubik’s Cube was invented by Hungarian Ernő Rubik. According to the artist, this mural reflects on the fact that in life “there is always a solution – and not just one.”

It was hard to get a good shot of this mural, by Neopaint, but I loved the way it made the building disappear into the blue sky.

This mural overlooks the garden at Mika Tivadar, a bar in Budapest’s Jewish District, and represents Hungary’s tradition of food and drink. Artist: Mika Tivadar ; Kazinczy u. 47

Mural on Kazinczy utca ; Artist: Akacorleone

A creation by the group Neopaint, this mural shows the common ties between Polish and Hungarian cultures. The words read: “Hungary and Poland are two forever-living oaks, which have their own trunks, but their roots are far beneath the earth: they h… — A creation by the group Neopaint, this mural shows the common ties between Polish and Hungarian cultures. The words read: “Hungary and Poland are two forever-living oaks, which have their own trunks, but their roots are far beneath the earth: they have joined and invisibly merged. So the existence and strength of each one is tied to life and health of the other.” — Stanislaw Worcell

A beautiful mural depicting swallows, a bird that represents tranquility. Artists: Károly Mesterházy and Színes Város ; Akácfa Utca

In a number of places throughout the city you will find a single word posted on the corner of a building… it’s like a treasure hunt! You have to find all the words to discover the sentence they make…

…our tour guide did the work for us and showed us the colage he made on his phone.

This mural depicts a window washer and roofer, working on the building. I am not sure of the artist…?

Sidewalk art with the iconic symbol for Budapest’s satirical political party, Two-Tailed Dog. These colorfully painted sidewalk cracks can be seen in many places around the city… and are said to be a statement to the government regarding the poor st… — Sidewalk art with the iconic symbol for Budapest’s satirical political party, Two-Tailed Dog. These colorfully painted sidewalk cracks can be seen in many places around the city… and are said to be a statement to the government regarding the poor state of infrastructure in some places.

“Murals for Freedom” by artist Okuda San Miguel ; Dob Utca

This mural… known as “Budapest isn’t so small…” shows the size of the Jewish Quarter in comparison with the rest of Budapest, and is aimed to encourage people to get out and explore.

The woman in this mural on Rumbach Sebestyén Street is Elisabeth of Bavaria, the wife of Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. There is an entire section of the city named after her, Erzsebetvaros (Elizabeth Town).

My favorite part of the tour was when our guide stood in front of a blank wall and told us it was the location of a piece by Banksy, which depicted the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sitting on top of a toy train. Orban, whose behavior seems … — My favorite part of the tour was when our guide stood in front of a blank wall and told us it was the location of a piece by Banksy, which depicted the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sitting on top of a toy train. Orban, whose behavior seems on-point with mini-dictatorship, recently used taxpayers’ money to fund the construction of a private railroad to his home in a small village outside Budapest, where he also used tax-payers’ money to build an Olympic-sized soccer stadium with access from his front door. Banksy’s image disappeared even more mysteriously than it appeared, though it has never been determined who actually erased it. Nevertheless, it swiftly became an icon amongst those not in favor of Orban’s right-wing agenda… and you can find replicas of the original popping up all over the city (see below).

shoes along the danube

Jenny Rice February 10, 2019

In Budapest, I went to see the shoe memorial. Not knowing all the details of its history, I had only heard that it was an independent art installation to honor the victims of WWII. It was a bone chilling December evening in Budapest as I made my way through the Pest side of the city to the banks of the Danube where the memorial is located, close to the buildings of Hungary’s Parliament. Shoes on the Danube Promenade was created by film director Can Togay and sculptor Gyula Pauer and consists of 60 pairs of 1940s-style shoes, true to size and detail and wear, and sculpted from iron. The shoes (men’s, women’s, and children’s) are lined up with toes towards the river, and look exactly as if they were just removed by their owners and discarded, mysteriously, so that one’s eyes are sent on a search from their insoles to the river’s water, and onward.

I was so struck by the solemn simplicity of the installation that even now, two months later, I struggle to find a single string of words that does any justice to what I felt as I stood there, riveted, with tears streaming into my collar. I attempted, and failed, to write this article several times, abandoning it for fear I could never do in words what the shoe memorial does in visuals and after reading half a dozen poorly-written accounts of it on the internet, I wondered if there is anybody out there that has succeeded in doing this at all. But then, there is the history involved… and all that it demands of the conscientious onlooker, for I do not believe that one could adequately comprehend the shoe memorial without contemplating the consequences of man against mankind.

The winter of 1944-45 was one of the coldest on record in Hungary. Boulders of ice floated down the Danube river that runs through the center of Budapest, dividing the city into two. In October of 1944, Hitler’s army overthrew the Hungarian government and its leader, Miklos Horthy, who was replaced by the fascist anti-semitic Ferenc Szalasi. Having the same ideologies as Hitler himself, Szalasi quickly established the Arrow Cross Party to publicly terrorize and murder Budapest’s Jews. In just one year, approximately 80,000 Hungarian Jews were sent on a death march to Austria, and 20,000 were executed on the banks of the Danube, along with anybody suspected of collaboration. That winter, the Danube became known as the “Jewish Cemetery.”

Shoes were a valuable commodity during the war. And as the victims of executions would no longer be needing theirs, they were required to remove them at the banks of the river. The shoe strings were pulled out and used to tie their hands and feet. Often, two or three people would be tied together, but only one person out of the group would be shot. When they were thrown into the river this way, the weight of the dead person would drown the others beneath the icy water. Later, their shoes would be sold on the black market, or taken directly for use by the Arrow Cross militiamen.

Just sixty years later, Togay and Pauer’s Shoes on the Danube Promenade was installed, with three iron plaques on which the following is written in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew: “To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944-45. Erected 16 April 2005.” Indeed, to see the shoe memorial is to imagine, in real time, the men, women, and children who were marched at gunpoint and plunged there, barefoot, to watery graves. And to wonder, perhaps more so, about the people who watched it happening, again and again, from inside their warm homes high above the streets. And I write just 60 years later because when I stood on the banks of the Danube and looked upon the row of remarkably lifelike iron shoes, some of them so, so small, I felt a queasy unease that still lingers in my soul. For there is more than one way to throw your neighbor into a river… and it’s not always the first way that you think. I would sooner drown alongside a good neighbor than turn my back on his demise in the streets.

Reference:

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/hu-history-30.htm

from barcelona to paris to budapest and the rest is...

Jenny Rice January 16, 2019

I went to Budapest on a whim to visit a friend I hadn’t seen since sixth grade. She and her family are part of a growing population of digital nomads who have chosen a life overseas to escape the skyrocketing cost of living and plummeting quality of life experienced by so many in the United States. On my way to Budapest I spent a week in Paris to meet some other childhood friends of mine who had flown there from Seattle for Thanksgiving. From Barcelona, I caught a BlaBlaCar ride to Perpignan, France, stayed overnight in a hotel and took a train to Paris the next day. My dog, Luna, is allowed on the trains in most European countries with the exception of Spain and Slovenia.

I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with Paris but that’s exactly what happened. I had a mysterious feeling that Paris was where I was actually supposed to be from, but I had been misplaced by the universe and instead born in Washington. I felt entirely at home in the untidiness of the city itself, charmed by the way Parisians turn old into avante-garde, the way that even garbage on the street seemed to be purposefully strewn there as art. I love the pensive expressions the French wear with their pea coats… and how they get magnificently upset over minimal things - so refreshing. I loved it that I could walk into the fanciest restaurant on a street with my wet dog on a leash and the staff - brisk and stuffy towards me - would get down on their knees to pet Luna and bring her sparkling bowls of bottled water. If Paris were only affordable, I may have never left. Good thing it wasn’t… for I would not have made it to Budapest!

I’ve mentioned BlaBlaCar on this blog a few times and if you haven’t heard of it until now it probably means you’re from the United States where it doesn’t exist. BlaBlaCar is a nearly-worldwide rideshare app that’s the modern (and safer) pay version of hitch hiking. If you’re willing to put your faith in humanity, BlaBlaCar will save you hundreds of dollars you would otherwise spend on train or plane tickets. There’s little wonder why the app isn’t available in America, where you’d no doubt get raped or murdered or robbed or drugged or arrested or in the absolute least be very nervous in your attempt to save some money, be eco-friendly, and still get to Thanksgiving dinner on time. If I’ve learned one thing in my travels it’s that my life overseas is rarely in danger as often as it is in America. It took some trial and error to figure out the system and I’ve relied heavily on Google translate to communicate with drivers but so far every ride I’ve hitched via BlaBlaCar in Europe has been a fun and successful experience. I even managed to snag a ride with a Romanian fellow who drove me all the way to Budapest from Paris in one day. Fueled by chocolate croissants, coffee, and Monster energy drinks, Lorenzo the Lead-foot shaved a remarkable three hours off our projected 13-hour drive time and kindly picked me up at my doorstep in Paris under snowy skies at 5:00 am.

I stepped out of his car that evening and straight into the arms of my friend Leah. Twenty-four years later and half the world’s distance and we picked up right where we left off. Whereas in sixth grade we were organizing non-permitted bake sales on town sidewalks and donating the money to a local wildlife rehab center… within our first week together in Budapest we broke ground on the formation of an international publication by all-women writers. I spent three weeks in the city with Leah’s family soaking up enough dark history in its museums to give me really bad nightmares and using Tinder to talk locals into giving me more details. I observed Budapest’s holocaust memorials in stricken contemplation, photographed somber onlookers at a Jewish protest against the falsification of history, and added tears to rainfall on the shoe memorial at the banks of the Danube, an art installation so powerful that even a month later I find it difficult to talk about. With political unrest prevalent on nearly every street corner and protesters marching to Parliament nearly every nightfall, it was an exciting time to be in Budapest. And I couldn’t help but take note of the similarities between what’s argued about in Hungary, a post-soviet society under a prime minister who behaves like a dictator vs. what’s argued about in the States; world-power capitalism under the spoiled spawn of wealth. Not to mention the unsettling fact that the former adviser to Trump, Steve Bannon, has been hired to advise Hungary’s right wing prime minister Viktor Orban.

I left Hungary just before Christmas and now roughly one month later I am in Split, Croatia where Leah and I are busily editing our new publication, the first edition of which will be launched on Valentine’s Day. My contribution will be an article and photo essay about my time in Budapest and all that I learned whilst walking the streets and interviewing the locals I met via Tinder. The same article will be submitted to The Evergreen State College as part one of my winter quarter in photojournalism. Followers of this blog will get to witness my writing process as I go along! BTW… to everyone who thinks of Tinder as a hook-up-app-only you are only partially correct, my friends. To be honest I have never actually “hooked up” with someone on Tinder (perhaps to the chagrin of my so-called dates) but I have certainly met lots of people using the app, made lots of friends whom I stay in touch with to this day, and in Budapest I even scored an incredibly informative interview with a local political scientist/lesbian/professor. Thank you Tinder!

Stay tuned for more information about the international publication by women writers and how you can get involved! We are currently accepting submissions from all over the globe. Categories include editorial, personal stories, opinion pieces, photography, art, poetry, fiction, and erotica. Our editors are based in Europe, United Kingdom, and The United States. Email me at jennyrice.love@gmail.com

Also please check out my Patreon page where I have launched a new personal photography project called Nude-a-day! For a mere 80 cents a day ($25 a month) you can help support me as an artist and see the project as it is produced: https://www.patreon.com/nudeaday Patrons get to view and comment on work that is not released elsewhere, plus see videos of my travel adventures in Europe with my dog. I plan to phase out my personal Facebook page over the coming year, so if you follow me on Facebook and don’t want to lose touch, consider becoming a patron to my art via Patreon and/or subscribe to email notifications of this blog.

xox

five and twenty photos from España

Jenny Rice December 6, 2018

A requirement of my contract with The Evergreen State College was a twenty-image essay of photo selections from Spain. Creating cohesive photo essays is my greatest challenge as a photographer and something I struggle with mentally, emotionally, and physically. Seriously, for real. Because it’s easy to take single image after single image, day after day, year after year… forever! This has been my M.O. as a photographer since I was given my first camera and why now at age thirty-seven I am adrift at large in a vast sea of aimlessly-taken photography.

Knowing I would have to throw myself a life raft if I wanted full credit for the quarter, I signed up for a street photography workshop in Barcelona with Spanish documentary photographer, Mingo Venero, who would be discussing this very thing - how to make a sentence using only photography. I wrote a blog post about it back in October which you can read about here.

One thing you might notice about that post is that it contains too many images. And that’s generally my biggest Life Problem As A Photographer. Just… way, way too many photos. If you don’t identify as a photographer yourself you might not see this as a problem, and you might even say something like hey… better too many than too few, right?? But whilst I fundamentally agree that too many photos is better than too few… I also invite you to contemplate for a moment my recent task of narrowing six-thousand-some-odd photos from my time in Spain into a twenty-photo gallery that visually makes sense to anybody other than me. From six-thousand to TWENTY. And just for the record, I take a lot of really weird photos. And I’m sorry to say it but I do not feel any more savvy at creating cohesive photo essays than I did three months ago, despite the help from a professional like Mingo Venero.

That said, I tackled this assignment more methodically than I have with others in the past. I started by creating five file folders: Catalonia, Andalucia, Diarios de Perros, A Poop and a Paw Print, and Portraits in Nature. I spent about ten hours scrolling through my photos from Spain and moving photos into their corresponding folders. I repeated the process again and again until I had roughly one hundred photos between two folders. When organizing a gallery you typically want to display either black and white photography or color photography but not black and white photos with color photos, so I chose only from my black and white photography. Also because I have a lot more of it. If you want to see some examples of my color photography all lumped together but not making a cohesive essay, check out my post, fotografia de colores.

After two days of agony I had thirty-something photos in one file and was experiencing the sort of visual overstimulation that is the reason why professional photographers tend to be introverted and cranky.

I then did what any school teacher does who has a strong sense of self-preservation and divided my classroom into groups of twos & threes: three Lunas, three Cathedrals, three Beaches, three Donkeys, three Streets, three Dunes, three Self-Portraits, two Horses and two Dogs, so that with the Misfits sent on cafeteria duty I had a total of twenty photos from Spain plus five for wiggle room. Five and Twenty. Not bad, eh??

My sponsor will require me to delete some of my images. Not just the five extras but maybe half of the entire gallery. And I will squirm in my seat and sweat like he’s asked me to forfeit the very appendages of my body but unlike chopping off fingers, this process is good for me artistically. It forces me to consider which images are strong in their meaning without captioning. The importance of this is the difference between documentary vs snap-shot photography.

The following five-and-twenty photos were taken in a variety of locations throughout Spain in the months of October and November 2018. The locations (but not explanations) are included in captions. This gallery is not a compilation of my favorite photos from Spain… but rather, a representation of my experience of being in Spain. I consider photography my emotional interpretation of the world I see, expressed visually. I therefore included portraiture, and self-portraiture, in my interpretation of such a beautiful country.

the very unique Nau Bostik

Jenny Rice December 5, 2018

A little over a week after the closing ceremonies of the Barcelona Foto Biennale, I had to go back to the Nau Bostik Cultural Center to pick up my photos. When I was planning my trip to Spain I was actually really worried about how I would manage transporting ten large framed prints from Barcelona to wherever I was going afterwards. I imagined myself hauling one frame at a time down a narrow European street and hoping somebody would offer to help me. But a lot of the details worked themselves out on their own. For one thing, the directors of the Biennale decided to dry mount the entire show, which certainly made for easier transport afterwards. When I arrived to pick them up from the venue I found them neatly wrapped together in one stack. And instead of hauling them the length of Spain for storage at my friend’s home in Rota, the woman from whom I rented a room in Barcelona agreed to let me store them at her house until whenever I am able to come back for them. Now that I know I will be exhibiting again in the spring, I am planning to carry them home with me on the plane in May.

It was fun to visit the Nau Bostik in broad daylight, as the opening and closing ceremonies of the Biennale took place well after dark. The venue was developed under the direction of Catalan architect Xavier Besana, in a somewhat-renovated factory that had been out of commission for ten years. The Nau Bostik comprises eleven halls and totals 18,000 square feet. Quirky, colorful, and donning its structural decay like daisy chains, the entire outside of the complex is painted by street artists and as much of a show on its own as anything indoors. 👌#naubostik @ Nau Bostik

fotografia de colores

Jenny Rice November 30, 2018

A friend asked me recently if I ever work with color photography and the answer is…. yes, I do! And in Spain it was hard not to be mesmerized by such a landscape of beautiful hues. Whilst black and white photography best portrays the emotions I seek to capture in images, I use color photography when color itself is a main subject of the composition. Below are some favorite examples of the color photography I produced in Spain between September and November 2018. I have many, many more images that I wanted to include in this post but my computer has been on the fritz since I got here and prone to the most frustrating fits! Two weeks ago I left Spain and traveled north to spend a week in Paris with close friends from Seattle, and then east to visit a childhood friend in Budapest, Hungary, where I am now. As snow falls silently onto the frozen street nearby me, I wait for snail-slow wifi to upload photos and write what I need in order to wrap up the fall season of independent studies with Evergreen…

Brock and Brody on the sand dunes of Bolonia, Andalucia.

The wetlands at a nature reserve near Sanlucar de Barrameda, Andalucia.

Luna at the Straight of Gibraltar, Bolonia, Andalucia

Andalucian donkeys near Bolonia, Andalucia.

Sunlight on a building in Arcos de la Frontera, Andalucia.

A man moving out of the narrow street to let a car pass by, Arcos de la Fronterra, Andalucia.

A painter in the streets of Arcos de la Fronterra.

Girl matching her sweatshirt to curb in Arcos de la Fronterra, Andalucia.

Colors in the streets of Rota, Andalucia.

Snails in bulk (above) and uundies (below) at the gypsy market in Rota, Andalucia.

Yarns and ribbons at the gypsy market in Rota.

The irresistible colors of candy!! Rota, Andalucia.

Spanish olives at the gypsy market in Rota.

Boats in the river at Barbate, Andalucia.

A cat where I stayed near Tarifa, Andalucia.

Family on the street in Sitges, Catalonia.

My host at an olive farm in Xerta, Catalonia.

Dog on an olive farm in Xerta, Catalonia.

photographing the heslops

Jenny Rice November 23, 2018

Two years ago come spring I inquired to an ad on Craigslist for pasture lease in Shelton, WA. I was in Olympia for a few days to complete my registration at The Evergreen State College and begin what would become an arduous process of moving. Massive life changes were forcing me out of my home on San Juan Island and I was making hard decisions fast. I didn’t know if Olympia was where I wanted to live or if Evergreen was the right school for me but I knew I had to do something and Olympia seemed as good a place to start over as any.

I had been scouting the listings for housing and horse boarding for weeks without finding anything and was starting to worry that moving with three horses and three dogs would be an impossible feat. But something about the ad’s description of idyllic setting with goats and chickens and small family tugged at my heartstrings. I dialed the number and Heather picked up immediately. I asked her if she would consider renting me the pasture for my horses and also allow my mobile tiny home, with me and my three dogs living in it, and which would need water and electricity. She said yes, and told me to come see the property. But we got halfway to Shelton from Olympia and I had some serious bouts of wishy-washy feelings. Shelton seemed too far from campus, or rather… too far from home, as if the extra thirty miles was beyond my emotional capacity, adding insult to injury. I was traveling with my friend Danny, who was along for the surfing but who complicated things further because he happened to be living with me and didn’t want me, or the house, to leave. We pulled over at the junction of 101 and Route 3 and I remember the day so clearly as it was bright, warm, and sunny for early spring. I called Heather and told her we had changed our minds and wouldn’t be coming, that the commute from Olympia was longer than I thought and that I didn’t want to waste anybody’s time needlessly. I sat in our farm truck on the side of the highway and listened whilst Heather talked me into coming to meet their family. Later on, after we would become friends, Heather told me she had had a strong feeling about me and just knew, intuitively, that we were supposed to meet.

What was supposed to be an afternoon’s tour of Heather and Ty’s mini farm turned into an invitation to dinner and free overnight camping. And whilst I did not end up moving my tiny house nor my horses to the Heslop’s, they introduced me to their friends John and Patty O’Sullivan from whom I rented a different tiny house and to whose property I eventually moved my own… a long and lovely heart story I will save for another posting. One year of friendship and college courses later and I received the news that I had been awarded internationally for photography and invited to exhibit my work in Barcelona. And in the same week, Ty Heslop accepted a job at the military base in Rota, Spain and they decided to move there with their entire family. The Heslops departed on September 15, 2018, and my plane left for Barcelona on October 1st. After the opening ceremonies of the Barcelona Foto Biennale were complete, I rented a car and traveled the length of Spain to visit the Heslops as they settled into their new life in Rota. I’m not sure who was more excited to see whom… me, the Heslops, or the dogs… but it’s needless to say that we all take our Craigslisting pretty seriously ;)

When your heart longs for what it knows, a familiar face can take the place of the entire world you left at home. The following is a photographic series of Brock and Brody Heslop, who have taught me that the world is the length of a little boy’s leap, and as large as his dreams to leap again, and again.

Taken in Rota and Bolonia, Andalucia, Espana.

Highlighting Dawn Roscoe

Jenny Rice November 7, 2018

Artist Dawn Roscoe caught my eye at the Barcelona Foto Biennale with two images from her series, Exquisite Suburbia: http://www.dawnroscoe.com/exquisite-suburbia-2/

In the above image, titled The Makeup Lesson, Dawn captions with the following: “From Exquisite Suburbia, a work focusing on how mothers living in a demanding world full of family obligations, career goals, and beauty ideals are responding to the standard definition of the ‘perfect woman.’ Multitasking moms are desperately trying to juggle chores and errands while encouraging their children and fostering a happy marriage.”

Dawn’s photos; the Barbie face on a real woman’s body as she applies makeup with her daughter watching, and then sits, poised and emotionless, for a portrait with her family… are images I won’t soon forget. Like an episode of the Twilight Zone that gives me goosebumps because it’s story hits too close to home. Dawn’s photos make me uncomfortable, as they are supposed to. In this age of objectification and botox injections and eating disorders and a lack of mental health care, in which women are expected to fill a great many roles all at once but human isn’t one of them… are there not millions of Barbie masks worn daily by millions of American women?

Dawn Roscoe is an active public exhibitor of her art and the recipient of a number of prestigious awards, including the 11th Julia Margaret Cameron Award in 2017 and hence, her exhibition in Barcelona this year. Her family is featured in much of the work on her website, in particular her two daughters in the series, Best Friends: http://www.dawnroscoe.com/best-friends/

To see more of Dawn Roscoe’s work, please see her website: http://www.dawnroscoe.com/

las piedras de cordoba

Jenny Rice November 4, 2018

I had originally planned to stay near Barcelona for the duration of the Barcelona Foto Biennale but found myself too eager to see the rest of the country and besides that, I’m too much of a small town gal to be content with long stays in big cities. Traveling in Spain with a dog has its limitations, unfortunately. For all the happy dogs trotting around everywhere, Spain is the least dog-friendly country in Western Europe when it comes to public transportation. Although I had no problems taking Luna on the underground metro within Barcelona… I was disappointed to learn that she would not be allowed on Renfe trains long distance across Spain. I contemplated stuffing Luna into my backpack like I’ve done with bike panniers, but I worried a little about what might happen if they discovered I’d snuck my dog onto the train. And because I had yet to discover the ride share network BlaBlaCar (SO BRILLIANT and more about this to come) I felt I had little choice but to rent a car so that’s what I did. Compared to the States it is remarkably affordable to rent a car in Europe if you choose a main hub to rent from and return the car to the same place. I took the metro to the airport in Barcelona and rented a budget car from Sixt. If I had known about BlaBlaCar I would have never done this as renting a car seems such a silly and wasteful luxury for a solo traveler and just not my style.

Nevertheless, Luna and I were super comfy as we set out cross-country to visit the Heslops, dear friends from Washington who recently moved to Rota, on the southwestern coast of Spain. It takes about twelve hours to get from Barcelona to Rota so I decided on a stop-over in Cordoba, a small city in central Spain and not far south of Madrid. Steeped in a rich history, Cordoba was at different times the capital of a Roman province, the capital of an Arab state, and an Islamic Calphiate. I knew I needed to see its stones with my own eyes…

I arrived at Cordoba after dark, which was a dramatic introduction to its infrastructure. I went for an hour’s walk around the city and admired it under the flood lights. Spain’s cities come alive at night, so there were lots of people out and about, doing the same thing as me.

Cordoba was built alongside the Guadalquivir River which is shallow and muddy and spreads out into marshes. An enormous Roman bridge spans the river and provides the main access for foot traffic to this day. I stayed in a cheap hotel outside the city where I could leave the car parked the next day, and walked a few kilometers into the city on foot. I happened to be there on Spain National Day, which wasn’t great timing on my part because it was very, very crowded with people. I didn’t stay long in Cordoba because of this, but I had a lot of fun wandering the narrow streets for a few hours and gazing upwards in astonishment at its medieval moats and towers. It was very hot, despite being October, and I read later that the city is known for having the hottest temperatures on the European continent.

The Mezquita, an Islamic mosque circa 786, is the main attraction of Cordoba and I recommend seeing it during the off season and/or not on a Spanish national holiday. The square was so packed with people outside that I didn’t even attempt the line to go inside. The mosque was expanded upon during Cordoba’s Muslim era and later, during the Christian Reconquista, it underwent the odd addition of a cathedral in its very center. It’s a fascinating mixture of architecture that I didn’t give myself nearly enough time to take in. I was sweating in the heat of the square and felt closed in by too many people.

Amidst the crowds of tourists on the bridge was this man playing an accordion. The sight of him fit perfectly with the vibe of the city but made the crowds of tourists with their cell phones and screaming babies seem more abrasive than ever before. His music was beautiful, and sorrowful, and I was swept away with thoughts of what life was like here in a time that’s long gone by…

I escaped the chaos of the mosque square to wander some of its adjoining streets. By that time it was nearing 2pm when Spanish cities shut down for siesta…

I spent some time visiting the carriage horses where they waited to take tourists on rides through the cobblestoned streets. Most people are well meaning when they book a carriage but are too ignorant to know that the majority of carriage horses the world over have very, very sad lives. After a lifetime of connecting with horses it takes just one glance at their eyes for me to know whether they are happy in their work or are being forced into it and in pain of some kind. Horses are such quiet, gentle giants with the big, peaceful hearts of herbivorous creatures. Humans just plain don’t deserve the servitude we put them through and if people don’t know better then they need to be told so. In Cordoba I saw carriage horses who were underweight, under muscled, and suffering from equipment that didn’t fit properly. And no wonder, as they spend all day on cobblestones and pavement, shod in metal shoes so that the bones, tendons, and ligaments of their legs absorb the concussion of their weight. Think about how painful your body would be if you spent all day hauling humans around with metal shoes on your feet, a metal bit in your mouth, and in harnessing that rubs raw spots in your armpits, on your shoulder blades, along your spine and the bone behind your ears…

In contrast to the sad faces on horses were all the happy faces on dogs! Spain is full of jubilant dogs with proud owners and it makes me smile to see them everywhere I go! I ask permission to take photos of people’s dogs and here in Spain my request is often met with an eagerness to tell me all about them and help by making the dog pose for its photos. I LOVE THIS, obviously, for there seems no end to the doggie photo ops at hand, and for the way it makes me feel instantly at home in places I’ve never been before. We may not share a language (yet…) but we share a love of dogs and that in itself is fodder for fast friendships ;)

Since my short time in Cordoba I have traveled the length of Spain several times in several weeks! I have so many new images that are already dear to my heart… so stay tuned for love letters to donkeys and self-portraits without clothes on ;)

12th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers

Jenny Rice November 3, 2018

Just days after the closing ceremonies of the Barcelona Foto Biennale I received the news that I have been awarded in the 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers, my second year in a row, in the categories of: Women Seen By Women, Portrait, Self Portrait, and Nature. With this award comes the invitation to exhibit in the 6th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography which will take place in 2019. It feels really good to be recognized twice over in an international award, and to know that my recent work is getting noticed, too. All of the photos that were awarded in the 11th Julia Margaret Cameron Award were taken at a time of extreme emotional trauma and prolonged stress… a time when photography and poetry became the path by which I found my way, every day. It’s just a fact that artists produce some of their best work during their darkest hours and I know I am not alone in my worry of wondering if not every last ounce of my creativity was squeezed out of me when the universe had me by my lady balls and was squeezing, mightily.

But what some people might not know about me is that I inherited my shutterbugs entirely from my father. Captivated since childhood by his beautiful black and white portraits taken with the same Olympus OM-1 I use now, I can thank him for an early introduction to fine art photography and an in-born skill that isn’t going to evaporate off of me in the sunshine but rather simmer and become thicker and richer and sweeter over time.

So it was with some tears that I saw my Portrait of My Father at Mount Shivano and Tabeguache in the lineup of photos awarded in the portraits category of this year's Julia Margaret Cameron Award. I took this photo, a candid portrait, just this summer of 2018 and I knew when I snapped it that I had truly captured my father in this moment; his humble love of nature and quiet contemplation of a wonderful world.

jenny rice_portrait of my father at Mt. Shavano and Tabeguache.jpg

making a sentence with pictures - a workshop with Mingo Venero

Jenny Rice October 30, 2018

I took a workshop on the streets of Barcelona with Mingo Venero. A documentary photographer with an exquisite, artistic eye, Mingo’s work truly inspires. If you’re unfamiliar with his unique style, have a look at his website here: http://mingovenero.com/en/

I’ve admired Mingo’s photos on Instagram so when I heard he was offering a walking workshop in Barcelona, I decided I could make an exception to my no-guided-tours-rule.

Our group met on the steps of the Catedral de Barcelona at 9am. It was hard not to be distracted by the incredible surroundings of the square whilst Mingo presented an introduction to the day’s work. The schedule went something like this…. follow Mingo around the city, take lots of photos, talk about photography, learn some history, and have some lunch on the beach. Pretty rough, eh?

It felt strange to hear a photographer explain street photography; something that seems so instinctual. But I was captivated by a photo essay Mingo put together using just six photos he had taken in the city over the course of five years. He showed us the essay with his laptop, and we stood above him on the stairs as thickets of tourists made mazes on the stones of the square.

Mingo explained how he makes a sentence using only photos (no captions), and encouraged us to utilize his concepts in our own editing. Constructing cohesive photo essays is something i struggle with greatly. Photography is a coping mechanism that keeps me afloat in the swirling emotional sea of conscious life. But I often feel that my photography is fragmented; consisting of a great many single images that either don’t relate at all or are repetitions of a similar scene. I hit emotional walls with the task of constructing photo essays out of too many images the way a writer gets blocked up by blank pages of paper. Adrift on my sea, I fear drowning by weight of my own life raft.

So I’ve thought a lot about what Mingo said, coupled with the memory of his breathtaking images, and I’m humbly determined to apply it to my own process.

From the Catedral we moved through Barri Gòtic, El Ravel, and finally, El Born neighborhoods. Barcelona is a mecca of unbelievable architecture, but I was much more interested in the colorful characters crowding the dark, narrow streets and the faces I saw staring at me from behind glass or under tents in alleys.

The workshop ended with lunch on Barcelona’s waterfront, where we learned a fascinating bit of history. The beautiful golden sandy beach? All new. Prior to the 1992 Olympics, Barcelona’s waterfront was a typically rocky Catalonia shoreline. Along the water was a row of businesses… fish markets and bars and open air vendors… the back doors opened to the water, where they threw their refuse, and the front doors to the street. Along the rocks between the buildings and the water was a gypsy community. In preparation for the Olympics, the gypsies and their businesses were kicked out, their buildings and homes demolished, and the rocky shoreline blasted to pieces. The rocks were moved to make an extensive breakwater, and sand was trucked in from further down the coast. Barcelona’s new blonde beach and sparkling white boardwalk is a landscape that tells little of its colorful cultural past. I couldn’t help but think that I would prefer the former trend… for now it’s just another white waterfront catering to the whim of the wealthy white man.

P.S. I couldn’t end this post without some photos of Luna, of course, who attended the workshop with me…

And made at least one essay… easy:

Steffi Drerup's self-portrait with baby no. 5 [at the Barcelona Foto Biennale]

Jenny Rice October 28, 2018

Last weekend I made the journey across Spain from Rota (Cadiz) to Barcelona for the closing ceremonies of the 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography, where I exhibited work as a recipient of the 11th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers. In my last post I highlighted some of the artists that stood out to me the most: https://jennyrice.love/blog/2018/10/18/barcelona-foto-biennale-artist-review

The Barcelona Foto Biennale showcased the work of photographers from all over the world. I spent hours walking the halls of the Nau Bostik cultural center, going back to the same photos again and again to take third and fourth and fifth viewings. I felt honored and inspired by the opportunity to see so much amazing work all in one place. And I was happy to note that the Biennale got a lot of traffic… it seems a strength of European culture that people young and old and rich and poor ALL go to see art just for the sake of seeing art. Galleries open to the public draw crowds here the way street fairs do back home and it’s comforting, as an artist, to know that somewhere this is so!

I had planned to follow up my previous post with a narrowed down version of the same thing… but I instead decided to focus on a single image and highlight several artists in separate posts. Out of the hundreds of photos showcased in Barcelona, Steffi Drerup’s “self portrait with baby no. 5” stuck front and center in my mind and hasn’t left since. At the closing ceremonies I found myself coming back to it again and again:

Drerup’s “self portrait with baby no. five” is from a series she calls “naked eye,” selections of which have received honorable mentions in the International Photography Award, and the 11th and 12th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. The title card read: “[naked eye] explores the various emotional states women and men may find themselves in when starting a family: Hope Vulnerability, Joy, Despair, Pride, Uncertainty.”

From Cologne, Germany and now living in Berlin, Drerup studied internationally and received degrees in fine arts and design. She is also the mother of five children. The work on her website focuses mainly on candid portraiture and self-portraiture with color photography. You can view her “dear all” on her website here: http://www.steffidrerup.com/wordpress/dear-all/

As a photographer I pay special attention to self-portraits of all kinds; professional, amateur, candid, studio, accidental (the best!) and yes, selfies. Particularly interesting to me are self-portraits by women photographers. There is often a visceral quality that gives me something to chew on for long afterwards. Good self-portraits are rarely about vanity. Quite the contrary, self-portraiture can be an artist’s most powerful expression of vulnerability. When I saw Drerup’s piece at the Biennale, the first thing that struck me was the fact that she thought to take it in the first place. And not with her cell phone, but with her camera. Newborn baby-number-five in arms, still red from birth and Drerup swaddled in absorbent pads to soak blood, she picked up her camera and took a photo of herself in the bathroom mirror. She went on to receive recognition for her series naked eye; an intimate photo essay of life; but chose that single image to represent her at the international exhibition. Only a true artist can make eloquent a moment of intense vulnerability, so to make public such a raw documentation of the self. Thank you Steffi Drerup.

[Check in soon for my next post in which I will be sharing street photography taken in Barcelona at a workshop with Spanish photographer Mingo Venero.]

Barcelona Foto Biennale ~ Artist Review

Jenny Rice October 18, 2018

As an exhibitor of the Barcelona Foto Biennale, I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the artists for those who are not able to make the journey to Spain to see the show. There are so many inspiring photographers recognized in this event… my effort to share some of their work on my blog is done so with a pang of anxiety for the fact that I am only brushing the surface. I urge all photography and art enthusiasts to attend the Biennale if it comes to a city near you. Better yet, submit your own work to the Gala Awards call for entries for a chance to be recognized yourself.

The link for my post about the 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography:

https://jennyrice.love/blog/2018/10/13/5th-biennial-of-fine-art-amp-documentary-photography-barcelona-spain

The Gala Awards:

https://www.thegalaawards.com/

The following photos are a selection of work that caught my eye on the opening night of the Barcelona Foto Biennale, including my own ;) This is my first response to the venue…. no doubt I will have more to share after my second viewing (wherein I won’t be a jetlagged zombie). Most photos are linked to the artist’s website, if there is no link it means I wasn’t able to find something direct via Google search. I am returning to the Biennale for the closing ceremonies and afterwards, to collect my work. Stay tuned for a follow-up post! The 5th Biennial is open to the public until October 21st, 2018 at the Nau Bostik cultural center in Barcelona, Spain.

5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography - Barcelona, Spain

Jenny Rice October 13, 2018

5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography
Oct 4 - 21, 2018
Nau Bostik
Barcelona, Spain

This year I was awarded in six categories of the 11th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers and as such, invited to exhibited selected work at the 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography in Barcelona, Spain.

https://barcelonafotobiennale.com/

Not wanting to miss such an honorable experience, I traveled all the way to Barcelona from the United States with one of my dogs, Luna, to attend the Barcelona Foto Biennale in person. Luna and I arrived in Barca on October 2nd without nearly enough time to adjust to a new country before the Biennale opened on the evening of the fourth. The night we arrived at our affordable (tiny) attic room without a window we promptly went to bed and slept for twelve hours. It took us three hours in our jointly-jetlagged state to find our way from our room to the Nau Bostik, where the opening ceremonies began before we arrived. This was our first time in Spain, and my first time flying overseas with a dog, and it was Luna’s first time flying anywhere at all. It never crossed my mind that my dog would be just as jetlagged as me. I was so overwhelmed and disoriented upon our arrival at the Biennale that I scarcely talked to anybody the entire evening… but I did manage to take some photos with my cell phone and went home with inspiration to take flight by in my dreams. I will be returning to the Nau Bostik for the last week of the show, after which I will collect my work to eventually take home.

The Nau Bostik http://naubostik.com/ is a new cultural center developed under the direction of Catalonian architect Xavier Besana; an installation in an empty factory that had been out of commission for ten years. The Nau Bostik comprises eleven halls and totals 18,000 square feet. This is the first time that the Biennale has been held in such a non-traditional space and the result gives an edgy, industrial, and raw feeling that seems poignant for our time. The photos were printed with a matte finish, dry mounted and scaled to a fairly homogeneous size. The halls of the Nau Bostik gave me the sensation of entering a giant three-dimensional magazine… a mega-zine…. the large matte images popping out at me from white washed walls etched in the language of structural decay.

(Ten of my photos were displayed in this hall…. you can see them on the back wall, lower left row.)

Special guest exhibitor at the Biennale was fine art and commercial photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten: http://juliafullerton-batten.com/ Her photography is intense, colorful, and iconic - I will share more images of her work in my next post.

I spent three hours wandering the halls and platforms of the Nau Bostik, absorbing the magnitude of breathtaking images from artists all over the world. To see some of my work on the walls alongside them left me with something I struggle to describe except to say that artists serve their hearts on platters to all humanity, and to be recognized for it confirms that there is indeed humanity out there, receiving.

The following are photos of my work as exhibited at the 5th Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography. I was awarded in the categories of Documentary, Self-Portrait, Nude Figure, Open Theme, Nature, and People.

{Stay Tuned for my next post in which I will share some of my favorite images from other artists!}

(Top: A Soulmate Has a Heart You KnewBottom: The Language of Peace ) — (Top: A Soulmate Has a Heart You Knew
Bottom: The Language of Peace )

(Luna took a cat nap in front of my portraits of Lucy, whom we miss very much right now).