"I wanted to name our exhibition something
very alive," LeClaire said. "It's springtime. A lot of the work is
inspirational and colorful."
She has been fascinated with images since childhood.
"I've always liked to take pictures. When I was really young, I would sit and go through our family's pictures over and over."
ALTERNATIVE PROCESS
Pictures were memory. At Chazy Central
Rural School, she learned black-and-white photography. It was another
artistic medium she could do.
"This wasn't the moment I would identify
with being a photographer. When I went to college, I took a bunch of
art classes, and it clicked. I loved my teacher, Rebecca Solderholm.
She really liked my work. We had a lot to talk about."
LeClaire concentrated on alternative
processes such as liquid emulsion, cyanotype and kodalith. Her work
features people within landscapes. At present, she is at work on a
Master of Fine Arts degree at Johnson State College in Vermont.
In "Reawakened," she explores another
alternative process, Polaroid emulsion lifts, which she learned in a
one-on-one workshop with artist Eleanor Sweeney.
"It really clicked, because I could do it
at home. That was key. I can't have a wet room here. You cannot throw
wet-room chemicals down your drain. Digital is really expensive. I
can't afford that right now."
VERSATILE IMAGES
With lifts, LeClaire makes Polaroids from slides.
"You contact the back of the Polaroid with
contact paper. You heat it up in warm water, and the image comes off
the paper. You can manipulate it any way you like. You can cut the
image. You can fold the image. Adhere it to paper, glass, wood and
fabric. It's versatile in that way."
LeClaire compositions integrate young women.
"It's not really about them. It's not a portrait."
She has a thing for blackbirds and ravens.
"The raven is my spirit animal. I did a series of four prints of ravens flying. Again, it's not a portrait of a raven."
QUIET MOMENTS
Sadue's photographs arose from a still time in her life.
"My images are about stillness, those quiet moments when you're sitting there noticing things."
Also a painter and print maker, photography entered her life during her second year at the Junior College of Albany.
"I really enjoyed the class, and I think
what it taught me the most was how to look at the world differently. I
started to notice things that I probably wouldn't have noticed. I
didn't just snap pictures anymore. I really looked at things and had an
idea of what I wanted to portray."
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
from the New York Institute of Technology and a Master of Art at
Goddard College. Since 1991, in the Saranac Central School District,
she has taught art, including black-and-white and digital photography.
"The thing I most get out of it, I am able as a teacher to show my students how to look at the world differently."
SHAPES OF LIGHT
Her digital photos on exhibit are straight
and manipulated. "Singing Bowl" was inspired by watching sunlight
change quickly against a wall.
"I was fascinated by the shapes of light.
That happened to inspire me to take that still-life photo of the
singing bowl on the meditation table in that room."
How light hits and falls in the natural landscape and on objects captivates Sadue.
"In black and white, that has to be really
evident," she said. "I'm a very color-oriented person, too. I decided
to have these images in black and white. I wanted to simplify them more
and have the viewer look at the images and not be looking at the color.
Color can really change the look of the photo.
"I wanted them to look at the specific image without the color."
