It's a dog's life

Someone once wrote British etymologist and writer Michael Quinion inquiring about the phrase "it's a dog's life." There seem to be two interpretations, the letter writer said: it could mean it's a difficult life, or, some now interpret it as "what a cushy life!" Which was it?

Quinion felt it still meant the former.

Photographer William Wegman seems to have a third interpretation. A dog's life, as he portrays it, is a life full of whimsy and oddity.

Wegman, known for his humorous portraits of his Weimaraners, places his deadpan canines in the most unlikely situations: in a canoe on a lake, riding an exercise bicycle, on a mantle, testing out rollerskates, or in bed together, watching TV like a long-married couple.

His exhibit, "It's a Dog's Life: Photographs by William Wegman from the Polaroid Collection," opens at the von Liebig Art Center in Naples on July 12 and runs through Aug. 10. (A special preview reception takes place from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday, July 11. The reception is free for Naples Art Association members and $10 for non-members.)

Wegman's work is well known, even among those who don't frequent art galleries.

His photos have not only been widely reproduced in books but in calendars and on postcards. His videos and films have been shown at film festivals and on 'Saturday Night Live," "Sesame Street" and Nickelodeon.

The works on exhibit at the von Liebig are one-of-a-kind: 20-by-24 Polaroids shot with an oversized, 5-foot-tall camera that creates a photograph but no negative.

"Bill Wegman was first invited to work with the Polaroid 20-by-24 camera in 1979," says Barbara Hitchcock, Director of the Polaroid Collection and curator of the exhibit. "That was shortly after it was introduced to the public. There was an initial program where artists were invited to use this camera, with a resulting exhibition that was going to be held at the Hayden Gallery at MIT.

"And Bill Wegman, as you may know, came out of the '60s minimalism focus and was a real black and white photographer and videographer. And at the time, we only had color material, so when he got this invitation, he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to do it.

"But that was the very first time, and his reluctance dealing with color versus black and white soon changed. He became one of our regular artists, through our Artist Support Program, and one of our regular customers too. He was one of many fine art photographers who was renting the studio to develop his work, primarily with the weimaraners."

Wegman used the camera from '79 through the '80s, and then somewhat less in the '90s, she says. During the first few days of using color film, he would shoot things that were black and white.

Hitchcock attended a few of the photo shoots over the years.

His black Weimaraner, Man Ray, named after a Dada artist, "really loved to perform, loved to be in a picture," she recalls. "He would howl if he was tied up away from the set, until he was released. Then he would pose, and he'd be the cat's meow. It was very funny. He just didn't like to be sidelined. He loved being photographed, and he loved to invade the sets.

"Bill was not excited about anthropomorphism. And he really tried to transform Man Ray, avoiding it, but as we know from the photographs, he succumbed to it: pictures like Man Ray looking like a frog, like Kermit ["Frog/ Frog II"]. There's another one where he has an elephant's nose. ["Elephant"] And of course he dressed up to look like human beings, in dresses and hats."

Hitchcock describes Wegman as very serious about his work.

"He's very committed to getting a certain amount of work done, and he's kind of shy," she says. "He's a maverick. He's also totally dedicated to the dogs. He's had them since they were puppies. He had Man Ray initially."

But after Man Ray died in 1982, Wegman didn't think he'd make any more photos with dogs.

"He said he dreamed of him for years," Hitchcock says.

But in 1986, he saw Fay Ray, a 6-month-old puppy. She was named Cinnamon Girl, because of her taupe coat, but Wegman renamed her Fay Ray, a play on the name of the actress Fay Wray.

"She had yellow eyes - Bill called them 'Village of the Damned' eyes," Hitchcock says. "He didn't want to photograph her, because of his love, allegiance and reverence for Man Ray. But ultimately he did. Bill was totally seduced by her physique. She was gorgeous. He wrote this in his book 'Polaroids': 'Her fur was taupe…and she had yellow eyes like in a Rousseau painting… In a short time Fay matured from a coltish youth into a Garboesque beauty. My pictures grew with her. Now she was the muse, the adored one. Skin-deep beauty became the soul of my work.'

"She was sort of a vamp, a thespian, and a fashion model, all at once."

In fact, one photo shows Fay and Andrea, one of Wegman's assistants, posing together. Sitting shoulder-toshoulder, the duo looks like two fashion models. Andrea has dark hair, dark eyes and long lashes, and Fay Ray has those yellow eyes …and a pair of false eyelashes.

Wegman was one of the few photographers to take the 20 x 24 camera out of the studio. The first time was in 1980, when he brought it up to Rangely, Maine.

"He had it up there for a week, and on one of those adventures, they put the camera and all the gear on it in the back of a Suburu mini truck, and drove it into the water," Hitchcock says. "And they didn't manage to electrocute themselves!"

COURTESY PHOTOS Fay & Andrea, 1987

He took photos of the dogs in canoes and in the water. On land, he shot photos of them standing on boulders. And one day, when it was raining, they

had to shoot inside. That was when

Wegman took his famous shot, "Ray & Mrs. Lubner in Bed Watching TV." The photo shows the two of them in a rustic bedroom, in bed, under the blankets, leaning against pillows and watching TV together.

Other artists who have used the oversized camera outdoors include Tim Burton, who took it to Death Valley, and Robert Rauschenberg, who put it in the back of a truck and drove around the streets of Miami, taking photos. Rauschenberg, she says, would take the photo and pin it to the wall.

"He wouldn't coat it right away," she says. "In some cases he'd bleach part of it…and maybe hand-embellish a part of the film. He'd leave part of it uncoated so it would oxidize, and it'd turn sepia. So it was that ability to take the picture and allow it to change and got it to where they wanted it."

Not Food Dog, 1982

Wegman's photos are humorous, but never cute. Part of the appeal of his work is its wit and cleverness, Hitchcock says.

"For example, he did a diptych called 'Chow' with Man Ray, sitting with his head in a very large red bag of dog food," she says. "And in the next part of the photo, he's pulled his head out, and his head is all red. That's the kind of funny humor [he employs.] He likes puns. He likes word play. Many times the titles of the piece are important.

"There's one of Fay Ray, and she's wearing a cowboy hat, and in her mouth is a little plastic miniature horse. And the background is a painted mural backdrop. And he called it 'Rustler.'

"There's one piece that he shot on kind of marble granite floors, that was black with white speckles. And he had Man Ray with white confetti on him, and it looked like camouflage."

Polaroids have a long history with artists. Location scouts for movies have long used the medium, to take instant photos of potential locations for directors. Many professional photographers take Poloroids of their subjects before a photo shoot, to make sure they have the composition and lighting they desire. (Polaroids provide rich color and detail.)

Game Preserves, Maine, 1990

And "The Polaroid Book," which includes an introductory essay by Hitchcock, shows Polaroids taken by artists such as Chuck Close, Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, David Hockney, Wegman and Hitchcock herself.

"When Edwin Land invented instant photography, he really felt that this new process would be easily used by the 'man on the street,' to express himself or herself, and that so many people have this creative spirit, and certainly artistic interest in the world around them," Hitchcock says.

 

A colleague of his, art historian Clarence Kennedy, knew photographer Ansel Adams on the west coast, and introduced him to Land. Land demonstrated the camera for Adams, then sent him a camera and film and hired him as a consultant. Over the years, Adams would use various cameras and films and give the company feedback from the field. Adams was a consultant for the Polaroid Corporation for decades, until he died.

Rolleramer, 1987

Land bought a portfolio of Adams' work for $100, and year later had Adams purchase other photographers' work for the Polaroid Collection. Adams bought photos by Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Eugene Smith, and Minor White. (Adams wanted to buy a Paul Strand photograph, but felt it was priced too high at $125!)

"Land was really a practitioner of talking to fine artists," Hitchcock says. "They were both intellectually exceptional and their ideas and experiences were always feeding off each other. Land always felt that putting the camera and film into the hands of those who are practitioners, he would be able to get feedback for those who provide the design and the engineers who work in the field, to get information that in some ways would be different than what the scientific engineers were doing in the lab, who most of the time were working with mathematical paradigms. The field experience was invaluable, and that's something that was carried on until today."

But last year, the Polaroid Corporation announced it was ending production of Polaroid cameras and film, due in large part to the popularity of digital photography. The company has ceased making instant cameras and the supply of some film lines are expected to last into 2009, says a Polaroid spokesperson.

 

He didn't know what would happen to the 20-by-24 large-format cameras that artists would rent to use. The company's open to the possibility of leasing the technology to another manufacturer. Earlier this year, it introduced the Polaroid PoGo (short for Polaroid-on-thego), a pocket-sized, inkless printer that can print photos from some cell phones and digital cameras.

"In a way, Polaroid film has been like a canvas, an empty canvas," Hitchcock says. "It becomes the basis for creative expression. I think in part, because you see the picture right away… Then you learn quickly to move, from what you're seeing in front of you now, to where you want to be expressing whatever it is you're trying to create, visual expressions for ideas.

"Polaroid made many, many different kinds of films…and it gave the photography artists an opportunity to be really creative. Of course, artists are always pushing the envelope one way or another. In some cases, they're interrupting the developmental processes, or they're embellishing the negative or the positive with ink, or dyes, or paint or acrylic or staples. You name it."

Wegman, she says, seemed inspired by the medium.

"When it comes to Bill Wegman, he's floating ideas one after another after another," she says. "He takes a picture, he looks at it, and that stimulates the next thing he does. And he feeds off of trial and error. He starts with something and builds from that."

For example, she says, he put some white powder on Man Ray's muzzle, to help differentiate the fur and help it not be so shiny under the bright lights. That led to his famous "Dusted" photograph, in which Man Ray's patiently sitting under a snow of white powder falling from above. Another photo taken during the same time, "Rouge," shows a closeup of Man Ray with some red powder on his dark muzzle.

In an interview with David Ross, Wegman calls the Polaroids "fine art photographs, not fine photography photographs" and says, "It's just the way they come out of the camera which is what I really like about Polaroid. It has its own highly unique quirks. To me it's very much like video, at least in process."

The instant feedback feeds opens up the creative process, he says, providing spontaneity and the ability of "zeroing in or honing in on something."

"He's a shaman with the animals," Hitchcock says. "It's really quite amazing. And they just love him. They love to perform for him."