Walter Plotnick
The older I get the more often I begin to wax nostalgic when thinking of my past - most notably my childhood years. There was an innocence not yet corrupted by the weight of adulthood and responsibility, and when I see photographs that trigger these memories, this is what often starts to happen. It doesn’t matter the era or specific historical elements involved, but sometimes I’m reminded of specific cultural items that bring me back in a big way. I was recently reminded that I grew up on a steady diet of Coca-Cola and Cracker Jacks. Yea, sure, I was a bit of a spaz, but I was a kid, and that just came with the territory. On the front of every box of Cracker Jacks, it said in bold type, “Prize Inside!” This was definitely a bonus aspect of woofing down handfuls of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts. The prizes are lame these days, but back then, they were actual toys - small certainly - but something that you were often thrilled to get (again, childhood - it didn’t take much).
So now, it should come as no surprise that a body of work called Surprise Inside was a massive trigger for these memories. This work from Walter Plotnick serves an immense purpose for those seeking some fun in their lives (isn’t that everyone?). He creates his art from the opened and flattened boxes that contained the items of our everyday lives and imbues them with imagery from the past in an assemblage that would set off even the grouchiest of individuals. The scenes he creates are hopeful and playful and remind me of my most enjoyable days. A parade of acrobats, children, athletes, toys, animals - all flying through the air or balancing off-kilter in death-defying acts of courage pepper the compositions he constructs. If you’d like to get away from the crushing news cycle experienced daily, get yourself a good dose of these photographic objects of fun and whimsey. Oh, funny I should say that because that’s just what we have for you right here and now! You can thank me later.
So, for a good time, see Walter.
Forward Leap, from Surprise Inside
Bio -
Mr. Plotnick is a USA photo-based artist who lives and works in the Philadelphia, PA area. He received his MFA from University of the Arts and BFA from Tyler School of Art. Mr. Plotnick is an instructor in the Fine Arts Department at Penn State University/Abington.
Interview -
Michael Kirchoff: What was it that moved you into seeking a life in the visual arts? How did you get your start, and what were your early influences?
Walter Plotnick: My mother was a painter, my father, an amateur photographer. When I was twelve years old my father set up a make-shift darkroom in the basement of our house. He taught me to process film and enlarge prints. I have been making images ever since. Throughout Junior and Senior high, I carried my camera everywhere. In college, I majored in photography at Tyler School of Art. Professor William Larson suggested I try not to carry my camera everywhere but begin to make images in my mind and then go and create those images. During that time, photographer Arthur Tress’ book Theater of the Mind was an inspiration because he chose specific locations, used props, rather than capturing the decisive moment.
After graduating from Tyler, I worked for a couple of professional photographers who had studios on the same floor in an old industrial building. Frank Leone, who was an eccentric artist and made moody atmospheric photographs using light bulbs, tin foil and colored gels. Frank was very experimental, low-tech and loose. The other photographer was Robert Troia, who was equally brilliant, but far more technical with the latest Speedotron gear who knew the chemical makeup of lens coatings, etc. I opened my own studio, the size of a shoebox on the floor above Frank and Robert. They were both big post-college influences in my professional and artistic life. It was a time of great experimentation for me, painting large backdrops, shooting with mainly 4x5 view cameras and styling my images with a painterly sense of light. Still-life images were my passion, I could get lost in the “zone” for hours adjusting lights and objects. In between commercial jobs, I continued to make fine art images. It was during this time that the work of O. Winston Link fascinated me. He mostly shot at night, using giant reflectors loaded with flashbulbs at specific locations, in order to capture 20th c. American life in small Southern towns as locomotives roared by. The images are fantastic, exterior still-lifes on a grand scale.
MK: What is it that you get out of creating photographs? Is there an overriding theme in your work that you feel best represents you as an artist?
WP: I love the process of assemblage, of connecting and layering images that may or may not tell a story. The past is perhaps the overriding theme. Whether it is a memory, an actual event or inventions of both. There are certain 20th c. time periods that I gravitate towards design-wise, architecturally and emotionally.
MK: What is it that inspires you to decide upon a particular project?
WP: With the Surprise Inside series, finding a flattened disassembled box next to a dumpster caught my eye, I saw the geometry and beauty of that box, and immediately wanted to use it. The boxes become the canvas onto which I compose the image. There are other bodies of work where I might start with an image that I am drawn to and work it out from there. As a visual person, inspiration is everywhere.
MK: With regard to creativity and the projects you take on. Do you feel it is better to create work that fits a particular style for yourself, branch out and try new things, or better to simply leave yourself open to possibilities that happen organically?
WP: I think I am working on the same themes and ideas over and over in different ways. I do recognize the motifs running through my work, but do not purposely try and create or replicate a particular style. I subscribe to possibility. I have concepts, and experiment, but don’t know what the final piece will look like, so the experience is by definition, organic.
Junk Yard Special, from Surprise Inside
Swingin’ Sisters, from Surprise Inside
Aiming for a Brighter Future, from Surprise Inside
Blind Mother Listens to Child Leap, from Surprise Inside
Holding Pattern, from Surprise Inside
Fun with Strings Attached, from Surprise Inside
MK: Is there another artistic medium that informs your work and process? Music? Film? Literature?
WP: I think in some way, the collage aspect of my work is related to the moving image of the cinema. Sequencing and movement are ideas I play around with, a certain interplay and tension that feels like a storyboard of ideas.
MK: I would definitely agree. Inspiration from cinema is certainly at play here. What then does a typical creative day consist of for you? Do you consider yourself a workaholic, or do you keep a schedule of time for family, socializing, vacation, etc?
WP: I am not a workaholic. I seem to work best at night, after a second wind. I don’t work every night, it’s a bit haphazard, there is no strict schedule. I often will play Pat Metheny on the stereo and get into the creative zone. Family time and vacations are all in the mix.
MK: These days it’s especially refreshing to experience a photographic project on the lighter side, so I wanted to ask a couple of specific questions about a body of work that came to me attention during Critical Mass last year. With Surprise Inside, what was it that inspired the whimsical look and feel of these unique images?
WP: I have always enjoyed the beauty of acrobats and daredevils. In an earlier body of work, Circus Series, I printed vintage circus images onto clear mylar and then incorporated those with opaque and translucent objects to create photogram prints. The Surprise Inside series, I play around with the tension of balancing, levitating, flying, all activities I am too risk averse to try myself. In print, a controlled near disaster gives me a thrill.
Work, Life, Balance, from Surprise Inside
No More Crutches, from Surprise Inside
Silhouette Swing from Surprise Inside
Cricket Club, from Surprise Inside
D.C. Photography School, from Surprise Inside
Widener Estate, from Surprise Inside
MK: The blending of images from the past into more contemporary photographic works is clearly an interest and passion in your work. Do you feel that the past and the optimistic views of what the future might hold to be of a priority in how you make images today? Is this something that may be lacking in the art world today?
WP: The Surprise Inside series is fun and playful and feels that way when I work on the images. The Reimagining the World of Tomorrow series expresses optimism and modernity, which were themes of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The fair was a cultural and design phenomenon that helped shape American notions of modernity. So, as America is hosting the “World of Tomorrow” fair, Europe has frayed, Hitler invades Poland, and a world war commences. In some way that paradox makes this fair perhaps for me, in retrospect very poignant, something lost. Because of the war, that vision was interrupted, and we can never really know how that optimistic vision of modernity would have played out.
MK: Was there a specific point in time where you felt that you had found your voice in photography and became satisfied with the direction of your work? Do you ever truly find yourself in a good place with your images, or are you always searching for more?
WP: It is very interesting to step back and see the sequence of each body of work over the years and how they may have influenced or built upon each other. I think finding your voice or your rhythm is an on-going process. I enjoy the process of making things, so even if a series is less successful than another, I still feel it was a worthwhile endeavor personally. Often, I am surprised at how a series comes together, and how that series may fit within the larger body of my work.
MK: What steps do you pursue in order to find an audience for your photographs?
WP: These days everything is on a screen, images flash by in the blink of an eye, I tend to be old school and mail promotional postcards to museum curators, gallery directors etc. Something that they can touch and hopefully put on their desk or fridge.
Mr. Holland’s Tunnel, from Surprise Inside
New York Uprising, from Surprise Inside
Child’s Play, from Surprise Inside
Paris Flip, from Surprise Inside
Out of the Blue, from Surprise Inside
On Target, from Surprise Inside
MK: Well I know that I love the ones you sent me - I’m looking at them pinned to my wall now! So while your use of vintage objects and photographs mixed with photograms are often blended with technology via photocomposition, it is clear that you are not a Luddite by any means. Do the “old ways” of making photographs versus digital methods become equal in your eyes? Is it simply applying the necessary tools to fulfill your vision?
WP: I love wet photography and always will. There is something so beautiful about shooting and lighting for film and prints that come out of a darkroom. Yes, I think it is about using the tools to experiment to find or fulfill your vision. For now, I really like to be able to blend both wet and digital together.
MK: How does your role as an educator play into who you are as an artist? Do they inform one another in any way?
WP: When my students problem solve, they often come up with solutions I never would have thought of. It’s a thrilling moment for me in the classroom, to experience their process and discovery.
MK: Would you like to drop us a couple of pointers aimed at the future’s visual pioneers in the making? Maybe some words of wisdom for those starting out in the field?
WP: Experiment. Trust the creative, intuitive parts of yourself. If something does not work out, learn from it and move on. Try and seek feedback from a variety of people. One piece of artwork does not define you, it’s more important that you just keep working.
MK: What might we see next from you as we progress into the future? Do you have anything new you are currently working on that we should be on the lookout for?
WP: I am knee deep in boxes, literally.
You can find more of Walter's work on his website here.
All photographs, ©Walter Plotnick
