hanging with mrbennette: WYATT GALLERY the person : Jewish Treasures of The Caribbean .

Meeting Wyatt Gallery (the person not a place)
FOTOFEST 1998 and now
Jewish Treasures of The Caribbean

Fotofest has changed a lot of lives and created strange and powerful bonds over the years. I first reviewed there in 1998 with no real idea about how it would effect me, because I was reviewer.The truth is I met a lot of photographers and I still share ideas with them and we support each other in various ways. I always felt that Fotofest was a place for discussion and discovery and one of my questions for all the artists /photographers is why are you here ? One of my last things to offer them was a mantra"I am an artist who is taking control of my own art/career/destiny".You would have had to been there

The previous post was about Hiroshi Watanabe.I will return to his photographs soon but I would like to speak about another photographer I met that year at Fotofest Wyatt Gallery (a person not a place) has metamorphize over the years while still being a good guy with heart and purpose.When I met him,I thought he would end up trapped in a studio with seamless paper and big white lights. I was seeing only one side, since then he has created meaningful bodies of work about the people of New Orleans, Haiti,Sri Lanka and New Yorkers who faced the aftermath of hurricane Sandy.Wyatt not only photographs in these places but volunteered as an active worker in the communities that were devastated,He came away each time inspired with a mission to raise funds for the people he met and he has.

I just got word about a project that he has been working on, one that reveal more depth about beauty inside that glowing spiritual essence that we can not define but many feel. I feel it in traditional gospel music as I walk by a church or feel it in seeing the simplicity of a Walker Evans contact print taken of a small white wooden church in Alabama countryside sometimes I feel it at mass or even walking down the street the experience come to me as others reach out in joy or sadness.

At Fotofest my question was why are you here.Wyatt's new book and exhibition project Jewish Treasures of The Caribbean will answer that question for some people as he tries to preserve part of his history and ours.The last half of the 1490's had a amazing effect on t he story of the development of the Western hemisphere.

Here I will stop to let Wyatt speak about his project.I only want to say I met him at Fotofest and I believe this project is worthy of your support.