Getting Larry Newton to talk about his art is easy. Finding a good time for the discussion is the hard part. This summer Saturday we’re in the studio, and it’s hot inside. Newton apologizes for the inconvenience. "The building air is only turned on for the work week. I’m only in the darkroom on weekends," he explains. "As much as I commit myself to fine-art photography, it’s not a living by itself …yet. Like so many artists, I have a day job."
He doesn’t expect that to change soon. But, if recent awards are any indication, he looks forward to some little bit of fame (if not fortune) before he dies. The studio, as he calls it, is made up of three rooms in a second-floor corner of a warehouse in the industrial end of Long Beach, California. It consists of a darkroom, studio space, and storage.
Today he is fortifying the cracks around the door to the darkroom with opaque weather-stripping. "I think this old building has shifted," he said, "so I need more of this to block the light." He further explains that the warehouse space, with its solid walls, floors and ceilings, is much easier to make light-proof than when he was using his apartment living space for the same work. "There are no windows here," he continues, "thank God."
When asked, "What’s your best work?" Newton gives a half-smile. "My favorite portfolio doesn’t win awards." He is referring to his World Bar Collection, a study of bar fronts from cities across the country and a few international destinations. When pressed he admits he doesn’t really know what to do with the portfolio. Eighty images are finished with another 150 or so shot but still waiting to be printed. He conceals them on a hidden folder simply titled 'bars' on his web site.
The portfolios that get the most attention (and awards) are Millennium Moons and FloraLuma. The moon images began in January 2001 to celebrate the 'real' millennium. Each month finds Newton in a different section of southern California taking images of the full moon alongside landmarks. Some are well known, like the Watts Towers, the Queen Mary, and Library Tower of downtown Los Angeles. Others are more obscure, like Long Beach’s Belmont Pier, Torrance’s Alpine Village, and Southgate’s Schultz Steel plant.
Jurors have found this typology intriguing. Most recently Newton took First Prize at L.A. Artcore’s Wallworks competition for 2003 with a selection from Millennium Moons. Another popular portfolio is FloraLuma. "It started by accident," Newton said, "When I was running a film test on new bricks of film. After shooting the twenty test shots, I shot the end of the roll using a sprig of orchids in a small patch of light." The result was an almost ghostly effect that has been easy to replicate. The mysterious look of the images has also intrigued jurors.
"They picked me as a winner one year with FloraLuma. The next year fifteen entries tried to copy the process; one even got quite close!" Newton said. When asked "What’s next for you?" Newton replied, "I want to develop my portrait series, Faces. I need to shoot many more to make it a standing portfolio. It’s not a new technique; I sandwich negatives. One is a person’s face against my black wall. The other is a negative of a color shot from his or her past. The result is a portrait with some context." As for a timeline, Newton cannot provide one. He works on his art on weekends and some evenings. It slows the process a bit, but not enough to discourage him. He refers most people to his web site, where he is meticulous about keeping his work updated.
More at Larry's Website:
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