BELLOWS FALLS — Canal Street Art Gallery recently announced that Len Emery is the newest artist to participate in the Working Artist Program. Emery's work is on view through Sept. 29.
The Working Artist Program now provides two artist studios and exhibition spaces within the Canal Street Art Gallery. Artists process their own sales and curate their own space, all during regular gallery hours.
Emery, based in Springfield, is an aerial, photojournalism, and fine art photographer. Emery continues his darkroom practice on a small, environmentally friendly scale, and has fully embraced the digital technology available for photography. He has built a digital workstation in the Working Artist studio space, including a custom-built copy stand and scanner.
At his Springfield studio, Emery produces and prints all his own work on archival inkjet printers. While in the Working Artist Program, Emery is offering new services: Artwork Photography and Fine Art Printing. Email [email protected] for more details.
Emery began work in the second Working Artist space at Canal Street Art Gallery while photographing and digitizing Thunder Basin, a 71-page graphic novel written and illustrated by Charles W. Norris-Brown. This was during the late artist's first posthumous solo show at the gallery. The show presented the full collection of finished, first draft, and rough draft pages, including a manuscript, created by the artist from 2016 through 2022 for the Thunder Basin project.
Produced by Len Emery Photography, The Charles W. Norris-Brown Estate is now offering archival pigment prints on uncoated Arches 100% rag paper of a growing number of artworks from Thunder Basin.
During Emery's time as a Working Artist he is sharing his process of bookbinding while continuing to produce handmade copies of his own books. Currently using the relatively straightforward method of stab binding, in development is the much more complex way of case binding.
Emery is working to produce more copies of an 89-page, stab bound, 11.5 x 8 inch photo essay, called Down East Journal, The Fishermen of Washington County Maine.
The second book is Vermont From One Thousand Feet, An Aerial Photo Essay Volume 1: Orange, Windsor and Windham County, (2022, 80 pages). There are four more volumes to follow encompassing the remaining counties in Vermont.
Canal Street Art Gallery is located at 23 Canal St., and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about the Working Artist Program, or Canal Street Art Gallery, go to canalstreetartgallery.com, call Mike Noyes by phone at 802-289-0104, or send emails to [email protected].