January 2012

2007-03-04T11:10:00.715-05:00

Candela Books of Richmond, Virginia announces the publication of "salt & truth." Photographs by Shelby Lee Adams," to be released this October 2011.

120 pages, 80 tritones.

D.A.P./ Distributed Art Publishers

"Your pictures, they are about culture, showing how different people live, how one person is just different than another. You got to learn how to deal with all people. It's just like black people and white people. You know some racist, they look at it different. Not me, I look at it totally different. That's what your tryin' to show people, to me. That's a part of our church and everything here, in Eastern Kentucky, about God. There's love and kindness in all things and take a man, as who he is. I'm more accepting of all peoples, denominations in church, races and whatever you want to call it. I see good in all people. I've seen your ways, from growin' up under you; you're tryin' to teach people. I've watched you. You're showin' they's somethin' good in all of us, as individual people. It don't take a well knowledged person to understand the feelin' of love and kindness, when you see it in someone and their works, you feel it. "

Terry Riddle, Viper, KY

Salt & Truth is the fourth book from American photographer Shelby Lee Adams [1950-present]. This collection of 80 new photographs, taken over the past eight years, continues a project the artist has been working on now for over 30 years. Together these powerful images of the hollow dwellers of eastern Kentucky, represent a singular access to a world that is historically not very trusting of outsiders, by a photographer who is widely recognized as a master of the medium.

Gordon Stettinius, Publisher

Candela Books Link

New Exhibitions:

Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA.

Title: Salt & Truth

Opening: December 1, 2011

Closing: January 28, 2012

Richmond Arts Review - Amy Ritchie

Richmond Review Link

Exhibition with Paul Paletti Gallery, Louisville, KY.

Title : Salt & Truth

Opening : March 1, 2012

Closing : May 31, 2012

Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago

Title: Salt & Truth

Opening: May 4th, 2012

Closing : June 28th, 2012

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New York Times - Sunday Review - November 13, 2011

I am honored, the New York Times has devoted a full page to my work and new book in the

"Sunday Review" Section-Nov.13,2011

with an additional slide presentation on their site, link below.

Slide Show Link

Full page View of the New York Times Page 9, from "Sunday Review"

Nov. 13, 2011

PDN - Photo District News

Feb. Issue '12, We edit text from "Salt & Truth" and PDN features some of my comments and writing on Photographing in Eastern Kentucky with portfolio.

LensWork No. 98 Jan - Feb 2012

Cover plus featured portfolio of 17 images and extensive interview.

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Brenda reviewing her photo made in 2004, on the same porch in Saul, KY.

Photo above made June 2011, with Brenda viewing "salt & truth" brochure.

Back of Brochure, featuring photo, "The Halloween Twins."

It is the spirit of the mountaineer living in the hollers that motivates and interests me. The visual representation of this culture has rarely been made from the inside. I don’t deny, nor do I see poverty as a focus in my work; once that "poverty" filter is removed, a different world emerges. The culture is multi-layered in expressing the fullness of life. Mountain people are more accepting of diverse representations of themselves than the viewer might imagine because they know themselves and are spiritually self-assured.

Shelby Lee Adams

Shelby showing Cody his published photo in brochure, seven years later, to be featured in forthcoming book, available October, 2011. Photo above made June 2011.

Cody and Tank, '04

Robbie and Tyler on Wrecker, '03

Billy and Bethany with Coon Skins, '04

John, '04 [age 92]

Photograph taken by Gordon Stettinius, Candela Books.

Shelby with Sam Stidham, photo made June '11, Sam is father of Mimie and Hazel.

Shelby with Hazel and Mimie, June '11, sharing "salt & truth" brochure, June '11.

Photo Gordon Stettinius

Hazel & Mimie, 2005

Photo as it appears in "salt & truth."

Jerry Napier, Shelby, Daryl Napier and Gordon Stettinius

Photo by Sarah Holcombe, June 2011.

Slemp, KY

Jerry, 2004

Photo as featured in, "salt & truth."

Nora's Bedroom, 1995

First photograph made with this family in photographer's home county.

Later published in "Appalachian Legacy,"

University Press of Mississippi, 1998.

Nora in 1998 when "Appalachian Legacy," photographer's second book was published.

She is holding book, she is represented in two photos.

Eddie Wayne in Living Room, 2010

Nora's son, photo above to be featured in "salt & truth."

Nora holding brochure open to her son Eddie Wayne's photo in new forthcoming book, "salt & truth,"

June 2011, Camp Branch, KY

Frankie with her niece Michelle, holding the brochure her photo is featured in, "salt & truth."

Frankie now 95 years old in photo above made June 2011.

Frankie holding Shucky Beans, 2002

Frankie was 86 years old when photo above was made.

Photo as featured in, "salt & truth."

Frankie, June 2011, age 95.

Lostcreek, KY

All work has been mutually reviewed and approved by my friends, families and subjects. Copies of published hardback book will be given to all subjects who are represented in "salt & truth" before available to the public.

The printing of book in Providence, Rhode Island by Meridian Printing, Aug. 2011.

Making corrections at press of "salt & truth." With press supervisor at Meridian Printing.

All photos at press by Gordon Stettinius.

Correcting cover and back of book.

With pressman in front of Heidelberg Press.

The finished book printed before assembly.

Gordon Stettinius, photographer and publisher

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My work has strictly followed word of mouth and personal introductions for all these years. However, it is becoming more difficult to find the authentic salt-of-the-earth people, who are now being overrun by a more sugar-coated society. The families who occupied this land for more than a couple hundred years are now interspersed with a new breed of Appalachian and land developers driving Hummers and Escalades, owning oddly shaped swimming pools and mansions built into the mountaintops after the coal is removed and the mountains reclaimed. To go into the woods nowadays can be dangerous and surprising. One has to be watchful not to stumble upon a booby-trapped marijuana field or abandoned meth houses, or be surprised by a bear or a coyote, or even the striking appearance of a wandering, imported elk herd. It is a more varied and diluted world now. Salt preserves wholesomeness and prevents decay, but the people from the earlier, harder-formed age who bear that special look are now in decline.
Shelby Lee Adams
From: "salt & truth"

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Shelby is honored to receive International recognition when awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Photography Fellowship for 2010. This recognition helped lead to the publication of "salt & truth."

Guggenheim Site View slide show

Shelby's Guggenheim Party, Viper, KY, Summer 2010

Please review both sites.

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YOU TUBE Video - Scotty Stidham

Video of Scotty was made in 1993 in S-VHS format. The quality of video suffers here, but the culture and life style is apparent. Scotty lived to be over 100 years old. He lived and farmed his land in Barwick, Ky. He shares his music, views on religion and politics in video. He was and is still endeared and loved by many.

Vimeo Video Format- Scotty Stidham
http://www.vimeo.com/3507045

Photography with the Slone's, Summer 2008

Artist Statement

Every summer, traveling through the mountains photographing, I am somehow able to renew and relive my childhood. I regain my southern, mountain accent and approach my people with openness, fascination, and respect; and they treat me with respect. My psychic antennae become sharpened and acute. I love these people, perhaps that is it, plain and simple. I respond to the sensual beauty of a hardened face with many scars, the deeply etched lines and flickers of sweat containing bright spots of sunlight. The eyes of my subjects reveal a kindness and curiosity, and their acceptance of me is gratifying. For me, this is rejuvenation of the spirit of time past, and I am better for the experience each time it happens. These portraits are, in a way, self-portraits that represent a long autobiographical exploration of creativity, imagination, vision, repulsion and salvation. My greatest fear as a photographer is to look into the eyes of my subject and not see my own reflection.

My work has been an artist search for a deeper understanding of my heritage and myself, using photography as a medium and the Appalachian people as collaborators with their own desires to communicate. I hope, too, that viewers, will see in these photographs something of the abiding strength and resourcefulness and dignity of the mountain people.

Shelby Lee Adams

Attention

We need an unprejudiced mind to see what-is; we cannot see what-is and respond to it if the mind is trying to change or suppress it. We resist what-is because we are afraid of the unknown, or because what-is contradicts what we have been conditioned to believe, or because it threatens us. The resulting fear prevents from us accepting what-is. Resistance to what-is may look like strength, but actually arises from fear, whereas it is powerful and freeing to accept what-is.

Surrender means allowing life to happen rather than opposing the flow of life, accepting the present moment without resistance. The necessary action will then arise, but when we act out of acceptance rather than resistance, we act without negativity or judgment. Action that arises out of acceptance is different from action that arises out of rage and hatred. Action that arises from a state of surrender is less contaminated with judgment and the need to hurt others. We simply do what needs to be done without labeling the situation as good or bad according to the ego’s criteria.

Lionel Corbett
Psyche and Sacred

All photographs and text copyrighted - © 2009-12 Shelby Lee Adams, legal action will be taken to represent the photographer, the work taken out of context, subjects and integrity of all photographic and written works, including additional photographers published and authors quoted. Permissions - send e mail request with project descriptions.