BERLIN

Daily Havana tumbles life onto the streets where bikes, wagons and hawkers of handmade brooms fill streets too narrow for the painted cars of the 1950s. At midnight I lean from a shaky balcony drawn to a party trumpeted by a band from a corner house. The barrio sleeps and sings at night. Rains come and go. People wait by day in thought and shadow for something unexpressed. Cubans are patient and used to disappointment and overripe fruit. Tourists bring nostalgia for a simpler life—neighbors looking out for each other and time to just be. The idea of Disconnect reflects both a time warp and Cuba's ration on virtual constant contact. Patterns repeat themselves in metal and metaphor—grids, a scrapped bedspring by an ornamental grille, lacework at a window, neighborhood networks—the web of woven patterns that record history and keep people inside and out. The past and the future resound. Juana, touching her wedding band, recalls a childhood of poverty. My landlady holds her first grandchild. And I'm invited to be a small part of their stories.

Awards

PEN New England 2009 Friend to Writers

Fellowship to MacDowell Colony

Phi Beta Delta International Scholars

CUBA, FALL, 2013

TALKING HISTORY, LIFE AND REVOLUTION

I am back from my Cuba trip this October and November, living in a barrio with friends of friends, and photographing in color for a change. From this short first trip I met artists, had the freedom I love to travel alone and with local friends, staying in a casa particular with a fascinating woman who had just become a grandmother to twins. My local friends, Arturo, Omar and an eagerly open couple—Juanita and Angel—in their 80s who live on the fourth floor of a house down the street from me. It is their fourth-floor partially-lit staircase I climb to visit them, as the phone they share with 3 others in the building rings and they call down, Arturo! Carolina! and return to our conversation. While Juanita is analfabeta—unable to read or write—from her years of daytime fieldwork and evening housework, she would walk to the 8 to 9 PM class at the local school if she had energy left. Angelito had more educational opportunity, though also grew up poor. You see, there’s a long story here, as with all of us. Let me introduce you to Juanita and Arturo and their environment. I’m in the process of putting this together with the spoken and written sounds of the people and their environment. Our email contact continues despite the difficulties. Ojalá que I will see them again soon.

   Arturo and Caridad's Kids

   Cemetery, Old Vedado

Not for Sale, Vedado, Cuba

Woman and Wall, Havana

Mangos, Havana

Jugo Naranja Natural

The Last Day of the Month

Man, Seated

One United Power

Reds, Blues, Greens, Havana

Their Kitchen, Havana

Seated Woman, Havana

Hotpoint, Havana

Bedspring and Wrought Iron, Havana

Change, Havana

Juanita

Angelito

Recycled, Havana

Viva la Revolución, Havana

Tango, Havana

Garlic, Havana

Young Worker, Cuba

Tiles, Viñales, Cuba

Doll, Viñales, Cuba

Family, Cuba

Hasta la Victoria, Cuba

Woman in Color, Cuba

Trees and Building, Havana

Street Chess, Havana

Painted Wall, Havana

Chick, Havana

Events

ARTIST'S STATEMENT


As a self-taught street photographer, I explore the relationships between people and their neighborhoods. I photograph a story I see in a person’s face. I imagine the interiors of people and am drawn to the vulnerabilities I see in strangers. Greys and ambiguity attract me—people alone in a crowd, a slice of life. In 40s and 50s Camden, NJ, my parents sent us out to play until dinner. There were niches to hide and experiment in, family-owned stores, my father’s drugstore and alleyways, neighbors raking who were willing to lend an egg. I look for those settings today—in the US and abroad. I was 14 when my grandfather died and relatives were just arriving from the 1956 Hungarian uprising. An older cousin sat in our kitchenette shelling walnuts with my mother for the family celebration. When I asked her about the blue numbers on his arm, she asked me to polish the silver. They told me of the relatives who hadn’t come and I decided to hitchhike in Europe: I learned to be comfortable with strangers. Keeping a travel journal led me to writing seriously and, as a young mother on a writing fellowship to MacDowell Colony, I met Ruth Orkin. We shared our love of visual poetry in ordinary, workaday worlds of people alone and together—spontaneous street scenes, melodramas, funny, moody and intimate moments. I lived in Mexico in 1988 and began photographing and returned a year later to train as an ethnographer. This was my evolution as a narrative photographer attracted to ordinary people in daily lives and to scenes that raise questions.

JURIED GROUP, ONE-PERSON and INVITED SHOWS

UPCOMING

• One-Woman Show: Trident Booksellers and Cafe: First and Second Floors (http://tridentbookscafe.com), September 2, 2013—November 30, 2013.

• NEWTV Summer Selective, Newton, MA: 5 juried pieces, Juror, Kathleen Smith, Director of Exhibits at New Art Center
                 
• July, 2013, Newton Mayor’s Office Summer Show, “Stay Cool”

• Invited Group Show: "Old Structures," Old Schwamb Mill, Arlington, MA. Curator, Emily Passman—through September 11, 2013. REVIEW: http://news.acmi.tv/2013/schwamb-mill/

PAST

• DANFORTH MUSEUM's Community of Artists: Through August 4, 2013: Juror, Katherine French, Danforth Museum Director, New England Chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) for curatorial excellence.

• YWCA Stand Against Racism, Juror, Karen Haas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jewish-Cape Verdean Seder.

• RE CYCLE: "Totem to a Marathon" Cambridge Art Association: Opening Reception, Thursday, April 11, 5:30-7:30

•"Brothers, Morocco," Greater Lynn 2013 International Photographic Competition

• FACE TO FACE: Painting, "Face to Face," Juror, Arlette Kayafas of Gallery Kayafas, March 2-30, 2013

• SECRETS: Group Show, January 19-February 25, 2013, "In the Kitchen," Juror, Jane Young of Chase Young Gallery, Boston
The Cambridge Art Association's Kathryn Schultz Gallery, 25 Lowell Street, Cambridge

• January, 2012, Boston Camera Club: Latimer Competition: Third Place, "Souq"

• November 9th, 2012-January 10th, 2013, Cambridge Art Association: BLUE, "Mother, Muted," Group show, Juror, Joseph Thompson, Director, Mass MoCA

• 2012, November, Newton Open Studios: NEW PHOTOGRAPHS Mexico, Morocco

• 2012, September, Concord Art Association, FRANCES RODDY 13th Open Competition, 2012, "Lubavitcher I," Juror, Jen Mergel, Beal Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• 2012, August, Scollay Square Gallery, "Friends: Morocco," "Brothers: Morocco,""Woman Baking Bread": Morocco," BOSTON CITY HALL, GROUP SHOW: Art and Poetry

2011: Newton Open Studios Top Ten: Juror, Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum. NewTV Gallery

UPCOMING PROJECT: Narrative Photography Project: GUERRERO, MEXICO, FALL, 2013

 PUBLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHS

• Anthology: RE CYCLED, Cambridge Art Association, 2013
• Anthology: SECRETS, Cambridge Art Association, February, 2013
• YWCA "Stand Against Racism": http://www.bu.edu/prc/StandAgainstRacism/index.html
Photograph: "Jewish-Cape Verdean Seder," 2013
• Book: PAIRS, 2013
• Book: VILLAGE FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS, 2012
• Shalom Magazine, December, 2012
• Book: FABRIC FRANCE, 2011

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVENTS

• April 20, 2013, Photographic Resource Center: PinUp Night

• April, 2013, New England Women in Photography: Simmons College

VOLUNTEER WORK

• June, 2013, Big Sister Association; PHOTOS and POEMS Workshop with urban girls and their "big sisters": writing poetry based on their own photographs

• JEWISH-CAPE VERDEAN SEDER, Photographer, Boston, MA

• Photographic Resource Center at Boston University: Accessibility Committee

SELECTED PAST ACTIVITIES

• 2011-2012: NewTV GALLERY, Newton, MA: Winners of Juried Newton Open Studios, Group Show, Curated by Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA

• 2011, Fall, Newton Public Library, Preview Show for Winners of Juried Exhibit; Curated by Katherine French of the Danforth Museum

• 2012, March, Presentation:"Women in Photography Night": Photographic Resource Center, Boston University, with Lisa Kessler; http://www.flickr.com/photos/prcboston/sets/72157629270275528/

• 2011, Fall, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS

• 2010, Spring, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS

• 1989: CHELSEA PUBLIC LIBRARY, Photography, "Cuetzálan, Mexican Village Life"

STUDIED WITH:

• Roz Ablow: Monoprint
• Tim Harney: Collage
• Bonnie Mineo: Encaustic
• John Murray: Mixed Media, Painting
• Joanne Mattera, Mixed Media/Collage

MEMBERSHIPS

Danforth Art Museum
NewArtCenter
Griffin Photographic Museum
Photographic Resource Center
Newton Open Studios
Boston Camera Club
Cambridge Art Association
Concord Art Association


• August, 2013 Photodocumentary Collaboration: Mexico

• BOOK PUBLICATION: PAIRINGS, 2013
       
PAST EVENTS 2011-2012

• June, 2013: Community Project: Big Sister Association: Working with urban girls on poetry-photography project; details to be announced


• Juried Group Accepted Entry, Frances N. Roddy 13th Open Competition, 2012, Concord Art Association, September 13–October 14, 2012 Thursday, September 13; Curator: Jen Mergel, Beal Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• GROUP SHOW Art and Poetry: "Impressions of Boston"
Scollay Square Gallery, Boston City Hall

•"Impressions of Boston": Group Show of Photography and Poems, Scollay Square Gallery, Boston City Hall

• April: Jewish Cape-Verdean Seder, Photographs, Boston, MA

• April: Making a Seder in a Mexican mountain village

• Fall to Winter, GROUP SHOW: NewTV GALLERY, Newton, MA: of Juried Newton Open Studios

• Fall, 2011, Newton Public Library, 2011, Preview Show for Winners of Juried Exhibit; Curator: Kathryn French of the Danforth Museum

• Presentation: Women in Photography Night: March 15, 2012, Photographic Resource Center, Boston University, with Lisa Kessler; http://www.flickr.com/photos/prcboston/sets/72157629270275528/

• Newton Open Studios, Fall, 2011, Newton, MA

• Lexington Open Studios, Fall, 2011

• Newton Open Studios, Spring, 2010

• Chelsea Public Library, 1989, Photographic Exhibit, "Cuetzálan, Mexican Village Life"

I am a narrative photographer and photoessayist who sees in ordinary people their everyday feelings and wishes. My training in ethnographic research and life stories has focused on immigrant mothers and their families. As a young writing fellow at MacDowell Colony in the late 1970s, I was lucky to have met Ruth Orkin and share—even as we were a generation apart—our early adventures and love of visual poetry in ordinary, workaday worlds of people alone and together—spontaneous street scenes, melodramas, funny, moody and intimate moments. I photograph in many parts of the world and in Mexico, where I lived and worked and often return. I combine my poems with my photographs and have publications in both fields. I live and work mostly in the Boston area.

Please contact Barbara Trachtenberg for archival, digital silver gelatin prints and special orders including requests for matted and framed prints and discount pricing.

For examples of Barbara Trachtenberg's photographs, paintings and mixed media
http://BarbaraTrachtenbergPhoto.com.

• Book Publication: PAIRINGS, 2013

GROUP EXHIBITIONS


As a self-taught street photographer, I explore the relationships between people and their neighborhoods. I photograph a story I see in a person’s face. I imagine the interiors of people and am drawn to the vulnerabilities I see in strangers. Greys and ambiguity attract me—people alone in a crowd, a slice of life. In 40s and 50s Camden, NJ, my parents sent us out to play until dinner. There were niches to hide and experiment in, family-owned stores, my father’s drugstore and alleyways, neighbors raking who were willing to lend an egg. I look for those settings today—in the US and abroad. I was 14 when my grandfather died and relatives were just arriving from the 1956 Hungarian uprising. An older cousin sat in our kitchenette shelling walnuts with my mother for the family celebration. When I asked her about the blue numbers on his arm, she asked me to polish the silver. They told me of the relatives who hadn’t come and I decided to hitchhike in Europe: I learned to be comfortable with strangers. Keeping a travel journal led me to writing seriously and, as a young mother on a writing fellowship to MacDowell Colony, I met Ruth Orkin. We shared our love of visual poetry in ordinary, workaday worlds of people alone and together—spontaneous street scenes, melodramas, funny, moody and intimate moments. I lived in Mexico in 1988 and began photographing and returned a year later to train as an ethnographer. This was my evolution as a narrative photographer attracted to ordinary people in daily lives and to scenes that raise questions.

• UPCOMING:

     -Social Documentary Project: Guerrero, Mexico, August, 2013, Details to follow.

Child Vendors, Mexico

Esther and Her Turkey, Cuetzálan, Mexico

Irresistible Water I, Mexico

Irresistible Water II, Mexico

Raking the Old Burial Ground, Newton

Jewish Cape-Verdean Seder, 2013

Lexington, Revolutionary Reenactment, 2013 on Boston Marathon Day

Old Schwamb Mill, 2013

Karen, Bob and Jocie

Costa Rica Home Hostel

Walking the New England Woods

Antakya Home: Stairs

Antakya Home: Tables and Chairs

Cuetzálan, Mexico

Morocco

Empty Workshop on a Sunday, Vence, France

Berber Home, Middle Atlas, Morocco

Preparing for Seder, Cuetzálan, Mexico

Cantina, Mexico

Day of the Seder, Cuetzálan

Trophy of a Friendship, Mexico

Church, Puebla, Mexico

Jose, After His Childhood

UPCOMING IN 2013

• DANFORTH MUSEUM Group Show: Friday, June 9—Sunday, August 4, 2013.

   -OFF THE WALL/COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS: Curated by Dina Deitsch, Curator of Contemporary Art at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA and previously curator at Williams College Museum of Art and the MFA, Boston, AND Katherine French, Director of the Danforth Museum, recognized by the New England Chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) for curatorial excellence and named Best Curator of Locally Made Art at the New England Art Awards.

• Invited Group Show: "Old Structures"—Old Schwamb Mill, Arlington, Massachusetts

      June 1-September 11, 2013. Details to follow.

JURIED SHOWS: 2012-2013


• April, 2013: Jewish-Cape Verdean Seder, Juror, Karen Haas of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The 2013 YWCA Stand Against Racism.

• RE CYCLE: "Totem to a Marathon" Cambridge Art Association: Opening Reception, Thursday, April 11, 5:30-7:30.

•"Brothers, Morocco," accepted into the GREATER LYNN 2013 INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITION.

• FACE TO FACE: Painting, "Face to Face," Juror: Arlette Kayafas of Gallery Kayafas, March 2-30, 2013.

• SECRETS: Group Show, January 19-February 25, 2013, "In the Kitchen," Curated by Jane Young of Chase Young Gallery, Boston.
The Cambridge Art Association's Kathryn Schultz Gallery, 25 Lowell Street, Cambridge.

• January, 2012, Boston Camera Club: Latimer Competition: Third Place, "Souq."

• November 9th, 2012-January 10th, 2013, Cambridge Art Association: BLUE, "Mother, Muted," Group show, Juried by Joseph Thompson, Director, Mass MoCA.

• 2012, November, Newton Open Studios: NEW PHOTOGRAPHS Mexico, Morocco

• 2012, September, Concord Art Association, FRANCES RODDY 13th Open Competition, 2012, "Lubavitcher I," Curated by Jen Mergel, Beal Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

• 2012, August, Scollay Square Gallery, "Friends: Morocco," "Brothers: Morocco,""Woman Baking Bread": Morocco," BOSTON CITY HALL, GROUP SHOW: Art and Poetry.

• 2011: Newton Open Studios Top Ten: Juror, Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum. NewTV Gallery

 PUBLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHS

• Anthology: RE CYCLED, Cambridge Art Association, 2013
• Anthology: SECRETS, Cambridge Art Association, February, 2013
• YWCA "Stand Against Racism": http://www.bu.edu/prc/StandAgainstRacism/index.html
Photograph: "Jewish-Cape Verdean Seder," 2013
• Book: PAIRINGS, 2013
• Book: VILLAGE FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS, 2012
• Shalom Magazine, December, 2012
• Book: FABRIC FRANCE, 2011

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVENTS

• June, 2013, PHOTOS and POEMS: Big Sister Association; Workshop with urban girls and their "big sisters": writing poetry based on their own photographs.
• April 20, 2013, Photographic Resource Center: PinUp Night

• April, 2013, New England Women in Photography: Simmons College

• June, 2012, Newton Open Studios: New Work from Mexico and Morocco.

• 2012, March: JEWISH-CAPE VERDEAN SEDER, Photographs, Boston, MA.

• 2011-2012: NewTV GALLERY, Newton, MA: Winners of Juried Newton Open Studios, Group Show, Curated by Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA.

• 2011, Fall, Newton Public Library, Preview Show for Winners of Juried Exhibit; Curated by Katherine French of the Danforth Museum.

• 2012, March, Presentation:"Women in Photography Night": Photographic Resource Center, Boston University, with Lisa Kessler; http://www.flickr.com/photos/prcboston/sets/72157629270275528/

• 2011, Fall, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS.

• 2010, Spring, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS.

• 1989: CHELSEA PUBLIC LIBRARY, Photography, "Cuetzálan, Mexican Village Life."

STUDIED WITH:

• Roz Ablow: Monoprint
• Tim Harney: Collage
• Bonnie Mineo: Encaustic
• John Murray: Mixed Media, Painting

MEMBERSHIPS

• Danforth Art Museum
• NewArtCenter
• Griffin Photographic Museum
• Photographic Resource Center
• Newton Open Studios
• Boston Camera Club
• Cambridge Art Association
• Concord Art Association
• Fountain Street Art Association

• November 9th, 2012-January 10th, 2013, Cambridge Art Association: BLUE,  Juried by Joseph Thompson, Director, Mass MoCA.

• 2012, November, Newton Open Studios: New Photographs from Mexico, Morocco

• 2012, September, Concord Art Association, FRANCES RODDY 13th Open Competition, 2012, Curated by Jen Mergel, Beal Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

• 2012, August, BOSTON CITY HALL, GROUP SHOW, Scollay Square Gallery: Art and Poetry.

• 2012, March: JEWISH-CAPE VERDEAN SEDER, Photographs, Boston, MA.

• 2011-2012: NewTV GALLERY, Newton, MA: Winners of Juried Newton Open Studios, Group Show, Curated by Katherine French, Director, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA.

• 2011, Fall, Newton Public Library, Preview Show for Winners of Juried Exhibit; Curated by Kathryn French of the Danforth Museum.

• 2012, March, Presentation:"Women in Photography Night": Photographic Resource Center, Boston University, with Lisa Kessler; http://www.flickr.com/photos/prcboston/sets/72157629270275528/

• 2011, Fall, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS.

• 2010, Spring, NEWTON OPEN STUDIOS.

• 1989: CHELSEA PUBLIC LIBRARY, Photography, "Cuetzálan, Mexican Village Life."

VOLUNTEERING

• Big Sister Organization: Boston, MA 2013, Poems and Photos Workshop.
• The Workmen's Circle of Boston: Great Boston Interfaith Organization for Social Justice

Please contact Barbara Trachtenberg for custom family portraits, fine quality digital prints and special orders—including requests for matted and framed prints and discount pricing.
BTrachtenberg7@gmail.com; 617-527-1630