Announcements Archives - Tony Ward Studio

A.H. Scott: Your Choice to Vote

Young asian woman sipping tea in European coffee shop — Photo: Tony Ward, Styling by KVaughn. Copyright 2022

Your Choice to Vote

Just remember that your choice to vote is always bigger than just about you

History didn’t begin the second a doctor spanked your newborn ass and you let out a wail

Since the moment of beginning, right now and onto future’s hence

Freedom is more than a bumper sticker of red, white, and blue

No time for false patriotism’s cue

Democracy needs to be held up and respected true

Roe’s gone and Brown can be gone, too

On the ballot are deniers of election, acting like their conspiratorial vision is the only selection

Infected by the dark tide of damning what they see as the other

Some are not seen as equal in the family of humanity

Identity bashed beneath waves of an ideological haze

Banning books and thoughts of progress is the conservative’s latest phase

Odd is it that they want to control what can be read

While those who are adults among them are mathematically inept

Not even knowing how many baby mamas you’ve screwed and left

Over and over the playbook is the same

Snarky they are, as their malarkey has taken them far

You call anyone not to the right of you a commie and lib

But, damn, don’t worry about what I am, cuz’ I can whip a few cold remarks ever so glib

No party holds the key to what loving this country is meant to be

Voting is cornerstone of this republic in which we live

Nobody can easily think democracy can be ripped away

Thus, we better vote like it might be our last

Fascistic winds across the land have not yet passed

Hucksters, opportunists and true believers are on the ballot this year

That which they have planned for America will be something many of us cannot bear

Yet, some say both sides are the same

Well, I know one thing to be beyond a transparent claim

If these ultra-maga conservatives win, our freedoms will go quickly down the drain

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.H. Scott is a poet and essayist based in New York City. Miss Scott is a veteran contributor to this blog. To access additional articles by A.H. Scott, click here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/tick-tock-knockin-on-reckons-door-part2/

Harvey Finkle: Under One Sky

PRESS RELEASE:

Upcoming Exhibitions:

Under One Sky: Reflecting Immigrant Communities.

The Photographs of Harvey Finkle, A Harvey Finkle Retrospective, 1982-2018.

Curated by David Acosta, Artistic Director for Casa de Duende, opening October 1st, 2022 5-8 PM @

The Dene Louchheim Gallery, Fleisher Art Memorial,

719 Catharine St, Philadelphia, PA 19147

Ed Simmons: In Memorium, 10-07-1952 – 9-22-22

Ed Simmons. Self-Portrait. LA. 2018. — Ed Simmons. Self-Portrait, Los Angeles, 2018.

In Memorium:

Ed Simmons: 10-07-1952 – 9-22-22

It figures that today is a dreary rainy day. Not easy getting bad news on a day like this, but it happened anyway. Jacqueline Simmons, the daughter of a dear friend, Ed Simmons called at 10:42 this morning to inform tearfully that her Dad passed away peacefully from complications of renal cancer. She was by his bedside at the time of his passing. Anyone that knew Ed would know how much he was comforted by Jacqueline’s presence. His daughter was the apple of his eye, a complicated relationship but they loved each other immensely none the less. Ed called early in June of this year and gave me the news his diagnosis was terminal. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ed always appeared fit and healthy. He didn’t exactly know how much time he had in June. He was acutely aware his time was very limited on this earth. We talked about therapy options that he didn’t want any part of. I tried to encourage him to look on the bright side, hoping against hope there would be a miracle, certainly there were plenty of prayers. Ed was steadfast. He starred squarely at his mortality and accepted his pending demise without complaint. He remembered seeing his dad suffer with the end stages of the same disease and decided after conferring with doctors not to take any chemo or radiation. He didn’t want to suffer with ineffective treatments the way his dad did. He said the disease was really nasty.

So we talked since June numerous times about what he would do with his personal effects, especially his photography collection. Ed was an amazing photographer and always offered his assistance on my shoots whenever I worked in Los Angeles. He loved LA’s nightlife and became a fixture, particularly around Melrose and his home away from home, Venice Beach, where he wished to have his remains released to the sea, where his spirit can eternally enjoy the sun and surf.

A life well lived and a close friend I will truly miss.

Here are a few links to past contributions Ed Simmons made to this blog. He would love for visitors to enjoy the articles he left behind:

. Dancing Girls Harvard and Stone: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/ed-simmons-dancing-girls-harvard-and-stone/

. Venice Beach Trashed: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/ed-simmons-dancing-girls-harvard-and-stone/

. Jay Adams Local Hero: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/ed-simmons-jay-adams-local-hero/

Studio News: Harvey Finkle – Under One Sky

poor black immigrant using old mattress as a trampolene — Photo: Harvey Finkle, Copyright 2022

Dear Friends:

Under One Sky: Documenting Immigrant Communities in Philadelphia The Photography of Harvey Finkle is an exhibition being planned for October of this year. We are raising much needed funds to assist with the matting, framing and mounting of 43 photographs out of the 83 that will be in the show and any amount donated will help us get closer to achieving our goal of being able to show these amazing photographs. Below please find a little more about Harvey’s work and this exhibition.

For five decades Harvey Finkle has documented immigrant communities, as well as social and political activism in Philadelphia and other US cities. He photographed and documented the Sanctuary Movement in the early 1980s and in 2003 his exhibition Philadelphia Mosaic: New Immigrants in America was held at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Under One Sky: Reflecting Immigrant Communities Through Photography 1982-2018 will present thirty-six years of Harvey Finkle’s photographs documenting the many immigrant communities that call Philadelphia home and is the biggest retrospective of his immigrant photographs to date.

The proposed exhibition also comes at an important time when immigrant communities in the USA are experiencing backlash, and in the case of Asian and Pacific Islandercommunities, a rise in attacks and violence in the form of anti-Asian hate. It is also an important exhibition as Harvey is no longer able to photograph due to the onset of rapid macular degeneration, which forced him to give up the camera, despite this challenge, Harvey continues to work by organizing, distributing, printing, editing and showing his work while continuing to make photos with a digital printer.

The exhibition will present over 80 photographs showcasing 17 immigrant communities living in North, South and West Philadelphia. The groups represented in the exhibition include Indonesians, Vietnamese, Hmong, Cambodian, Laotian, Indian, People from Burma, Bhutanese (Nepal), Mexican, Peruvian, Guatemalan, Liberians, Afghans, Lebanese, Ethiopians, people from Sierra Leone and Jamaicans.

—

Below please find a link to our indieGoGo fundraiser. Your generous contribution no matter how small will assist us in readying the work for exhibition. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/under-one-sky-the-photographs-of-harvey-finkle/x/10733026#/

Sincerely yours,

David Acosta & Harvey Finkle.

Berrisford Boothe: Selected Works

Berrisford Boothe: Selected Works

An Artist on Top of His Game

Berrisford Boothe is a former professor of art at Lehigh University, and a visual artist with a 30-year practicing and exhibiting presence in the Northeast regional, national and international art scene. Painting is his passion. Boothe has amassed fifteen career solo exhibitions and participated in more than 70 group exhibitions. As a printmaker he has had residencies at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, The Brandywine Print Workshop, Pondside Press, St. Barnabas Press, The Print Studio, Cambridge, U.K., and The London Print Studio, U.K. He continues his active practice and exhibits his work nationwide and internationally.

His works are part of several collections private and public in the U.S., South America and the U.K. Most recently works have been added to The Pennsylvania Convention Centers permanent collection, and the David C. Driskell Center in Maryland. Boothe’s works have been featured in seminal exhibitions such as ‘In Search of the Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art’ at The Woodmere Art Museum, ‘Afrocosmologies: American Reflections’ at The Wadsworth Atheneum and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA

Beginning in 2012 through 2020, he was the founding and Principal Curator for The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, collecting over 430 works of African American art. Among other exhibitions during that time, he curated the Portland Art Museum’s 2017 exhibition, ‘Constructing Identity’ and was an essential presence in producing the seminal 2019-20 Wadsworth Atheneum exhibition, ‘Afrocosmologies: American Visions.’

Portrait of the artist Berrisford Booth at an installation of his paintings — Berrisford Boothe

Editors Note: This is Berrisford Boothe’s first contribution to Tony Ward Studio. To purchase or inquire about work exhibited here contact:bwb0@lehigh.edu