Renowned nature writer, conservationist and activist Terry Tempest Williams is in town promoting her latest book, The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks, and a gallery in Dogpatch is showcasing it from a more visual perspective.
EQUINOMprojects Gallery (1599 Tennessee St.) is hosting not only a reading by Williams from 6–8pm tomorrow (Wednesday, June, but also an exhibit of 15 photographs used in the book along with more works by some of the artists. The photos will be up through July 9th (gallery hours are noon–6pm Wednesday through Saturday), and the book will be for sale at the gallery.
Monique Deschaines, director/curator of EQUINOMprojects, has been preparing for this day for six months, she said. One of the artists she represents, Ansley West Rivers, has work in the book (one of her photos, from the Grand Canyon, even graces the back cover). When Deschaines saw it, she wrote a letter to Williams and told her she wanted to curate an exhibit. "From that moment, I started pulling together the show that represents the artwork from the book," she told us.
Deschaines added that she was intrigued by Williams' passion and writing since reading her 2012 book, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice. "That inspired me to reach out to her," she said. This new book, she added, "asks poignant questions about who we are as a society and why we need the wilderness, and are we listening to this beauty around us or are we destroying it?”
The book, inspired by the celebration of the National Parks Service centennial, received a glowing review from Andrea Wulf in the New York Times Book Review. She wrote, "'The Hour of Land' isn’t a guidebook, taking readers through the nation’s most popular or most frequently visited parks— quite the opposite. Instead Williams embarks on an idiosyncratic journey through various landscapes (some empty, some crowded), delving, along the way, into the politics, activism, history and people that are also a crucial part of them."
Five of the artists—Lukas Felzmann, Mary Daniel Hobson, Edward Riddell, Ansley West Rivers and Christina Seely—will be at the reception and will participate in a panel discussion with Williams after the reading. Felzmann, West Rivers and Seely also will exhibit further works. Other artists in the show include Robert Adams, James Balog, Daniel Beltrá, Lois Conner, Lee Friedlander, Emmet Gowin, Mark Klett, Edith Levy, Jonathan Stuart, Carleton Watkins and Will Wilson.
This is just the second show for EQUINOMprojects Gallery, which gets its name from Monique spelled backwards, which was the founder's college nickname. Deschaines earned her master of fine arts degree in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute and was the associate director at the Haines Gallery (49 Geary St.) for eight years before founding her own space.
She left Haines in 2014 to teach, and then started to represent artists. EQUINOMprojects opened in April of this year, just a couple of blocks from the Minnesota Street Project. "Dogpatch is changing," she said. "There’s a lot going on down here from restaurants to stores. It’s a crazy and great time."
So far, the gallery only has shown photographic work, but Deschaines said she might branch out to other mediums. Still, exploring both traditional and contemporary, edgy forms of photography are her passion. "I’ve always had a love for photography," Dechaines told us. "It’s always been my thing. I think it’s a really, really interesting time for photography right now. I think photographers are pushing the medium and changing how actual photographs look, and I think that’s really great."
