Come see the limited edition fine art photographs by Ramona Cornell du Houx at Gallery Fukurou, 20 Maine Street, Rockland, Maine!
Story by David Kroner
Travel with Soto on his mystical journey through an imagined reality, where he gains perspective and listens to the wisdom in the air, water, fire, and earth. Embraced by nature, he is able to find truth within himself in his song. Color inside and out with 22 pages of photographic art.
Ramona du Houx uses the camera with a painter’s eye. Her technique involves movement to create a sense of wonder through colors, textures, memories, and the seasons. The images are dreamlike, healing, Zen meditative, and thought-provoking. All the photographic art was created on nature walks.
“Sometimes, when people look at my work, they relax and find tranquility, as by taking time to be at peace in Nature. At other times, the images can refresh, excite, or energize. I hope to connect viewers with Nature’s magic by revealing her complex balance.” –Ramona du Houx
978-1882190-33-1
$18.00
For gallery edition, printed offset contact duhoux2(at)tds.net. $22.00
Rockland, Maine – Gallery Fukurou will re-open after temporarily closing due to the pandemic with an exhibit that celebrates nature.
We are honored to host an exhibit by Yohaku Yorozuya from September 8 to October 1. The show entitled Photosynthesis raises awareness about how valuable protecting nature is to our existence. Yohaku’s art black and white photographs, mostly taken in Maine, captivate with wonder.
Photosynthesis is a biological process that converts light energy into chemical energy. Then it is stored in organic compounds and metabolized through cellular respiration to fuel the organism’s activities. Without the process nothing would be able to live.
Yohaku visits Rockland yearly. His lifetime passion for photography led him to become an emanate Japanese photographic fine artist who led the photographic department at Nihon University in Tokyo. He is renowned for his use of classic darkroom techniques, spending days perfecting his images.
This year, during his visit, Yohaku will develop film using ocean water from Rockland.
Photosynthesis Exhibit
Gallery Fukurou
20 Main Street
September 8 — October 1
11:00 am — 5:00 pm, Friday, Saturday & Sunday
The Solon Center for Research and Publishing owns Gallery Fukurou, which means owl in Japanese as well as prosperity and health. The owl in Ancient Greece often is associated with Athena, the goddess of arts and wisdom. The gallery borders Owl’s Head, two doors down from Primo.
Fukurou represents Maine artists, and fosters cross-cultural connections with Japanese artists and others. We host exhibits, booksignings, have lectures, workshops and other events. Our books have themes of long-term intrinsic value and are published through our Solon Center publishing arm, Polar Bear & Company.
The Solon Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit Maine Public Benefit Corporation that helps build community in Maine and beyond through educational, literary, scientific and artistic means, with publications, research, exhibits, events and other initiatives. We work to help the humanities flourish.
The Solon Center for Research and Publishing is also a platform where people from diverse disciplines can examine issues of cultural and environmental importance, while developing connections.
Democracy flourishes when creativity is allowed freedom of expression.
Finally, a children’s book in four languages! Below are some examples of the playful, educational pages in Clipper’s ABC’s.
Journey with Clipper, the adorable Maine island puppy, as he takes children into his world, while teaching them their ABC’s in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese. One painting leads into the next, as children follow bubbles throughout the book. This unique concept gives children continuity, as they discover other languages.
Reading Clipper’s ABC’s in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese children and adults fall in love with the puppy in the different circumstances the artist, Ramona du Houx, depicts him in. Some are humorous, some serious. Children eagerly try to pronounce the different words, as if Clipper has given them the courage to do so. Clipper takes them into his world, while teaching them their ABC’s.
With the availability of the Internet it is easy for adults to find out how to pronounce the various words in Clipper’s ABC’s in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
Mark Aufiery, Eola Ball, S.M. Belair, M. E. Brinton, Donna Chellis, Diana Coleman, Steve Feeney, N.T. Franklin, Lee Heffner, Donna Hinkley, Khristina Marie Landers, Rosemarie Nervelle, Ed Peele, Lynn Smith, Sandra Sylvester, Lee Van Dyke, & John Holt Willey
With Photographic art by Yorozuya Yohaku & Ramona du Houx
Seventeen writers tell stories about the Maine coast with depth, insight, candor, irony, wit and humor. Anyone who has ever visited or lived in the area will relate to them. They’ve put humankind’s instinctive emotional connection to the sea into words.
Last spring The Solon Center for Research and Publishing (SCRP) held a contest to give unknown writers in Maine an opportunity to be published in a book with photographic art that depicts Rockland and the coast in its myriad situations, moods and emotions. The result was pleasantly overwhelming with 88 stories submitted. In the end the 27 stories were published to accompany 23 images in Coastal Maine in Words and Art.
The art included in the book is currently on exhibit at Fukurou Gallery, 20 Main Street in Rockland. http://www.galleryfukurou.com
All book sales go into a SCRP fund for a project of the same nature next year. We’re want to thank The Maine Humanities Council for providing a grant to help the project.
More about the artists:
Yorozuya Yohaku is an artist with gallery Fukurou. He is renowned for his use of classic darkroom techniques. He’s used Ansel Adams’ zone system, polarization, solarization, as well as a camera obscura and many other methods over his career. He sometimes develops his images using ocean water, following a tradition of a few of the masters. He is a true craftsman, ensuring that all his techniques are personally applied in the darkroom. Some of his images are prophetic, like the Twin Towers series, which depicts the Towers in the 1980s, when he felt compelled to extensively record them from various perspectives. His images immortalize their memory. Yohaku (aka Takafumi Suzuki) is professor at Nihon University in Tokyo, where for many years he led the Department of Photography at the College of Art. He is the assistant dean and professor at the University of International Fashion in Tokyo, with branches in Osaka and Nagoya. He is a director of the Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography, as well as a member of Kokugakai (Society of Masters of Modern Japanese Art), the Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, and the Photographic Society of Japan.
Ramona uses the camera with a painter’s eye. She started her technique in 1979, using movement to create a sense of wonder through colors, textures, memories, and the seasons. Everything within the viewfinder becomes visibly interconnected when objects merge with the motion of the camera as the image, the “lightgraph,” is taken. “Many Native Americans continue to believe that everything and everyone is connected. It is that interconnectedness that helps to make us whole. Through photography, I have found light expresses that reality in unique ways. I try to bring the beauty and mystery of nature to viewers by amplifying this essence. That mystery can be transformational.” Ramona is president and cofounder of the Solon Center for Research and Publishing.
A young Thomas Votary leaves his father’s manorial estate on foot to seek his own fortune. Trained in reason and evidence, he looks for employment in late medieval Oxford, England. Soon he is swept up in the attempt to solve murders that lead to the highest reaches of the realm, even as King Edward III has ignited the Hundred Years War. His romance with a runaway from bondage leads them both into the perils of their rise in society.
Planning of the Fourth of July takes a turn, when new ideas are introduced. . . Those new suggestions kerfuffle Town Council members so much that they take home the wrong tails – and start acting like each other!
Through heartwarming humor, candor and wit, Tiggywiggle comes to the rescue by creating an Independence Day celebration to reflect his diverse community. In color inside and out with 10 illustrations of the animal characters.
Travel with Soto on his mystical journey through an imagined reality, where he gains perspective and listens to the wisdom in the air, water, fire, and earth. Embraced by nature, he is able to find truth within himself in his song. Color inside and out with 22 pages of photographic art.
Ramona du Houx uses the camera with a painter’s eye. Her technique involves movement to create a sense of wonder through colors, textures, memories, and the seasons. The images are dreamlike, healing, Zen meditative, and thought-provoking. All the photographic art was created on nature walks.
“Sometimes, when people look at my work, they relax and find tranquility, as by taking time to be at peace in Nature. At other times, the images can refresh, excite, or energize. I hope to connect viewers with Nature’s magic by revealing her complex balance.” –Ramona du Houx
978-1882190-33-1
$18.00
For gallery edition, printed offset contact duhoux2(at)tds.net. $22.00
Most literary journals don’t have much art. We believe combining the two is the best way to make each medium come to life, which enhances the viewer’s/reader’s experience.
We’ll host contests, working with Gallery Fukurou, of Rockland, Maine.
We invite you to submit short stories centered around a photographic art piece.
This bimonthly contest, 300- 800 words, allows you to write about anything you wish – as long as the artwork is your central focus. Due by the 22nd before the next publication. So, for this May issue the deadline is June 22. GO HERE.
The bimonthly 800-1,200 word story contest is our climate change challenge. The evidence is in, we are in a climate crisis. Stories have to be inspired by an art piece that revolves around a climate issue and a solution to that issue. Due by the 26th before the next publication. So, for this May issue the deadline is June 26th. GO HERE.
Next May, the Solon Center for Research and Publishing will announce its first literary/art journal. Stories from authors published and unpublished will debut here. Original art will accompany the stories. Working with Maine Insights Newsmagazine some of the stories will be reprinted there.
Most literary journals don’t have much art. The Solon Center believes combining the two is the best way to make each medium come to life, which enhances the viewers/readers experience.
The Solon Center for Research and Publishing will host contests and exhibits that come from the work of Insights Literary/Art Journal, working with Gallery Fukurou, of Rockland, Maine and Polar Bear & Company Stay tuned!
Travel with Soto on his mystical journey through an imagined reality, where he gains perspective and listens to the wisdom in the air, water, fire and earth. Embraced by nature he is able to find truth within himself in his song. With that reality Soto’s loneliness dissipates as he is able to live in the present, without worrying about the past or the future.
The quality printed art book of 22 images retails for $20.00, which includes shipping inside the U.S.A. ISBN: 978-1-882190-90-4. First print edition, first printing 2021.
The book will be available online for the public to read, as per request of the author and artist.
When Gallery Fukurou reopens in Rockland, Maine, after the pandemic, we will host a reception that accompanies an exhibit/book-signing. Stay tuned and stay hopeful for the future!
The Maine Humanities Council, along with a generous donation from a member of the public, made this project possible.
PB Co. 