James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith

b. 1947, American
Bio Statement More Portfolios

Botanical

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Sunflower/07-12, 2007

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/06-5

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/06-4

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/07-11, 2007

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/07-12, 2007

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/07-14, 2007

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/07-15, 2007

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Sunflower/07-4, 2007

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Sunflower/07-9

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith: Botanical/06-1

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James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith Bio

Chronology
1947	Born, St. Paul MN

2000	James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith began collaborating using the photogenic drawing process that led to the existing portfolios.

2001	Carol Panaro-Smith and James Hajicek received a resident fellowship from the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts to create the artists' book "Notes of the Foure Elements."

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Awards
2001	Resident Fellowship, Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, Chicago, IL

1998	Lacoste School of the Arts Resident Research Fellowship, Lacoste, France

1985	WESTAF/NEA Fellowship in Photography, Santa Fe, NM

1979	National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship, Washington, DC

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Solo Exhibitions
2009	Photogenic Drawings, Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla CA

2009	Poetics of Light, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ

2008	Conversations in the Garden, Tilt Gallery, Phoenix, AZ

2008	Of Time and Alchemy, Prescott College, Prescott, AZ

2007	Cadeaux de las Terre, Watermark Gallery, Houston, TX

2006	Photogenic Drawings, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

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Group Exhibitions
2005	Intimate Floral, Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft. Collins, CO

2004	New Histories in Photography from the Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2003	Natural Development, Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ

2003	Visiting Artists Exhibition, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, New Orleans, LA

2003	Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX

2002	Chiaroscuro Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

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Collections

Manfred Heiting Collection, Los Angeles, CA

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX

Hallmark Collection, Kansas City, MO

Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, Chicago, IL

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX

Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM

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Bibliography

Exploring Color Photography 4th Edition. Robert Hirsch. McGraw Hill, 2010

The Book of Alternative Processes 2nd Edition. Christopher James. Thomson Delmar, 2008

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Education
1973 - 1976	University of New Mexico, MFA in Photography
	Studied with Van Deren Coke, Thomas F. Barrrow, and Beaumont Newhall

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith Statement

Artist Statement
Over the last four years we have been working collaboratively using the process known as photogenic drawing – one of photography’s earliest and most beautiful. It is also one of the most simple and direct processes that defines the very core of photography without recourse to the normally thought of requisite equipment and materials.

Plants that we either dug from the earth or collected from the sea are exposed in contact with hand-coated light sensitive paper. This organic material withers under the intense heat and light of the Arizona sun as it completes its final act of participation in the creation of its own image.

As we continued to work with variations of William Henry Fox Talbot’s basic chemical formulas, we discovered that altering the variables of the light sensitive solutions, the chemistry in the paper, the intensity and accompanying heat of the light, and the chemicals emerging from the organic material, a color palette and physical presence emerged in the final print creating an ‘organic artifact’ beyond the imagination of anything previously thought of as photographic.

Each unique print will continue to transform with minor color shifts and the development of surface patinas as it remains alive, in a sense, changing and responding to its environment. This organic nature of the print, as it continues a process of transmutation over time, is a major conceptual component of this work.

In trying to strip everything extraneous from the photographic process and get to the very magic at its source, we have found ourselves in an arena ruled by serendipity, elusive mysteries, fugitive images, and the ruling master of all – the ultimate impermanence of everything.

We believe that photography - born in part out of our collective desire for permanence, a final proof, perhaps, for our own existence - presents us with only fleeting images, momentary reflections, and finally, our own impermanence. The closer one tries to get to the sacred nature of photography’s source, the more one is asked to accept that irony. This conceptual irony is, however, combined with the beauty, rarity, and luminance of newly completed works with colors, the nature of which we have yet to fully understand.

We have taken great care to produce these prints in the most archival method possible without altering their inherent organic essence. We believe that it is important that anyone interested in owning this work understand and accept these fundamental concepts.

James Hajicek & Carol Panaro-Smith Books
Available from photo-eye