My Dakota on New York Times Lens Blog

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Rearview Mirror,” from the book, “My Dakota”

NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG: There aren’t that many South Dakotans, What characteristics contribute to South Dakota-ness?

REBECCA NORRIS WEBB: This month is the 40^th anniversary of the Rapid City flood, the fifth worst flood in the nation’s history that claimed 238 lives.  Besides this rare flash flood, South Dakota blizzards, hail storms, and brutal winds are the stuff of legends. I’ve yet to meet a South Dakotan who hasn’t been humbled at least once by the weather.

NYTLB: You’re a New Yorker now. How are Dakotans different from New Yorkers?

RNW: Remember waking up during those New York City blizzards of January 2011, when all you’d hear was the muffled sound of snow falling?    Remember how the whole city seemed to be moving in slow motion? That sense of being dominated by the weather is a little like what it feels to be a South Dakotan.

LINK TO READ THE REST OF THE NEW YORK TIMES LENS BLOG Q&A WITH REBECCA ABOUT “MY DAKOTA”

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Blackbirds,” from My Dakota

UPCOMING EVENTS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA: JUNE, JULY, AUGUST

NEW YORK

––THURSDAY, JUNE 21, RICCO MARESCA GALLERY, NY: “Weather,” a group exhibition with a selection of photographs from MY DAKOTA, 6-8 pm.  The exhibition runs through August 17.

RAPID CITY, SD

––JUNE-SEPTEMBER 2012: Launch of OUR DAKOTA Flickr site, an online photographic community  This Flickr group is open to all photographers 15 and older with a present or past connection to South Dakota.  Here is the link to the first assignment. There will be three assignments posted during the course of the “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl, and the group will culminate in an “Our Dakota” slide show to be show both at the SD Festival of Books in Sioux Falls the last week in September 2012 and at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City on Friday, Oct. 5th, at 7pm.

––TUESDAY, AUGUST 7TH: “Slide Talk with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb” at the “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl.  11:30-12:30pm.  Brown bag lunch event in the Ruth Brennan Gallery.  Free and open to the public. Rapid City Journal article about “My Dakota” written by Deanna Darr in the “Black Hills 2 Go” weekend section.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

June 1-30, 2012. “The Suffering of Light: 30 Years of Photographs,” at the Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA

SNOWMASS, COLORADO:

TUESDAY, JULY 7-8pm:“Together and Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb,” Schermer Hall, Anderson Ranch Campus, Snowmass, Colorado.  Q&A with the Webbs and book signing of “The Suffering of Light” and “My Dakota” to follow.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

>Friday evening, Oct. 5, thru Sunday, Oct. 7 pm: FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ THE DAHL, Rapid City, South Dakota. Discount for members of the Dahl Arts Center.

Sunday, Oct. 21st through Sat., Oct. 27th, 2012: PROJECT WORKSHOP 2012 @ CAPTION GALLERY, DUMBO, BROOKLYN.  A small intimate workshop where participants spend a week editing and sequencing a long-term project, working on the text for it, and working with a designer on a cover. There will also be presentations about bookmaking including one by a photo book editor or publisher.  Former students are invited to apply, but other photographers will be considered as well.  This small workshop is almost full, so please contact Rebecca as soon as possible if you are interested: rebeccanorriswebb@yahoo.com.

ADDITIONAL LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

Alex’s interview with Geoff Dyer at the LOOK3 Photography Festival featured on The New York Times Magazine’s blog, THE SIXTH FLOOR.

–Link to “My Dakota,” which was recently featured on the New Yorker Photo Booth blog.

–Link to “Weather” mentioned on Elizabeth Avedon’s blog.

–Link to “My Dakota” at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, June 1-Oct. 13, 2012.

–Link to “My Dakota” on Aperture’s Exposures blog.

“My Dakota” on Time Magazine’s Light Box

Alex’s recent work on Treece, a toxic U.S. town, in The New York Times Magazine.

Alex’s interview with Alessia Glaviano for Italian Vogue

See Alex and Rebecca’s photos and others from Magnum’s House of Pictures project in Rochester here

See Rebecca’s My Dakota in progress at Radius Books

Q&A with Rebecca and Sarah Rhodes on Timemachine

To read the Robert Klein Gallery Tripod Blog Q&A with Rebecca.

Read more about Magnum’s House of Pictures project in the New Yorker and see Alex’s photo of the day, April 24th.

Alex’s “The Suffering of Light” exhibition at Forma, Milan, featured in Italian Vogue.

WEATHER group show at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, June 21-Aug. 17, 2012

WEATHER @ Ricco Maresca Gallery, June 21-Aug. 17

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Storm Light,” from the new book, “My Dakota,” featured in this summer’s “Weather” show at Ricco/Maresca Gallery in NYC

In this land of flash floods and blizzards, hail storms and brutal winds, it’s rare to meet a South Dakotan who hasn’t been humbled by the weather.   

For me, it happened when I was driving home for the holidays from college with my younger sister, Mary.  We had just filled up her old Toyoto with gas in Wall, South Dakota, and were again heading West on I-90 after six hours of  painstakingly slow driving on snow-packed, slippery roads. We were both relieved to be on the “home stretch” to our parents’ place in the Black Hills because the radio’s winter weather warnings were urging all cars off the roads –- including the interstate, because, if the blizzard weren’t enough, there were also treacherous subzero windchill temperatures to contend with.  Was it 20 below? Thirty below?  I think it was starting to snow again, or perhaps it never really stopped…

All I remember for sure is that we were one of the last cars left on the road that Christmas Eve, that the sun was setting, and, that, all of a sudden Mary’s old car rolled to a halt.  We looked at each other –- pre-med student to poetry student –– in the rapidly dimming light, both of us too afraid to say what was really on our minds –- if we didn’t make the right decisions now, enough exposure to such bone-chilling temperatures could lead to the loss of fingers or toes, and lengthy exposure could be lethal.  Did I mention this was before cell phones?  I was the older, but Mary was the physically stronger of the two of us.  Who would stay and who would venture out for gas?  And exactly how far away was the gas station?  It seemed only a few minutes ago we’d filled up — and Mary, more the scientist than I –– was probably the first one to suspect that water in the gas from Wall was to blame for the car’s freezing up.  Could it be, however, that we’d actually been driving more like 10 or 15 minutes since the Wall gas stop ––  and , if so, just how many miles would that turn out to be?  

I remember staring long and hard into my sister’s dark brown, thoughtful eyes.  Before either of us could speak, one of those usually annoying, road-hogging semi-trailer trucks pulled up behind us and offered us a ride to the nearest gas station. I was never so thankful to be squooshed into such tight quarters with my sister in that wonderfully stuffy, musty cab that smelled of diesel and tobacco…I remember feeling oddly giddy as I clutched my AAA card in my right hand, which just wouldn’t stop shaking.–Rebecca Norris Webb

–“My Dakota” Q&A with Rebecca and Jim Estrin on the New York Times Lens Blog.

–Link to “My Dakota,” which was recently featured on the New Yorker Photo Booth blog.

–Link to “Weather” mentioned on Elizabeth Avedon’s blog.

–Link to “My Dakota” at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, June 1-Oct. 13, 2012.

–Link to “My Dakota” on Aperture’s Exposures blog.

“My Dakota” on Time Magazine’s Light Box

©Rebecca Norris Webb, “Homestead Blizzard,” from the book, “My Dakota,” is part of the Weather” show at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC

UPCOMING EVENTS: JUNE, JULY & AUGUST

NEW YORK

––THURSDAY, JUNE 21, RICCO MARESCA GALLERY, NY: “Weather,” a group exhibition with a selection of photographs from MY DAKOTA, 6-8 pm.  The exhibition runs through August 17.

RAPID CITY, SD

––JUNE-SEPTEMBER 2012: Launch of OUR DAKOTA Flickr site, an online photographic community  This Flickr group is open to all photographers 15 and older with a present or past connection to South Dakota.  Here is the link to the first assignment. There will be three assignments posted during the course of the “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl, and the group will culminate in an “Our Dakota” slide show to be show both at the SD Festival of Books in Sioux Falls the last week in September 2012 and at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City on Friday, Oct. 5th, at 7pm.

––TUESDAY, AUGUST 7TH: “Slide Talk with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb” at the “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl.  11:30-12:30pm.  Brown bag lunch event in the Ruth Brennan Gallery.  Free and open to the public.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

June 1-30, 2012. “The Suffering of Light: 30 Years of Photographs,” at the Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA

SNOWMASS, COLORADO:

TUESDAY, JULY 7-8pm:“Together and Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb,” Schermer Hall, Anderson Ranch Campus, Snowmass, Colorado.  Q&A with the Webbs and book signing of “The Suffering of Light” and “My Dakota” to follow.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

>Friday evening, Oct. 5, thru Sunday, Oct. 7 pm: FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ THE DAHL, Rapid City, South Dakota. Discount for members of the Dahl Arts Center.

Sunday, Oct. 21st through Sat., Oct. 27th, 2012: PROJECT WORKSHOP 2012 @ CAPTION GALLERY, DUMBO, BROOKLYN.  A small intimate workshop where participants spend a week editing and sequencing a long-term project, working on the text for it, and working with a designer on a cover. There will also be presentations about bookmaking including one by a photo book editor or publisher.  Former students are invited to apply, but other photographers will be considered as well.  This small workshop is almost full, so please contact Rebecca as soon as possible if you are interested: rebeccanorriswebb@yahoo.com.

ADDITIONAL LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

Alex’s interview with Geoff Dyer at the LOOK3 Photography Festival featured on The New York Times Magazine’s blog, THE SIXTH FLOOR.

Alex’s recent work on Treece, a toxic U.S. town, in The New York Times Magazine.

Alex’s interview with Alessia Glaviano for Italian Vogue

See Alex and Rebecca’s photos and others from Magnum’s House of Pictures project in Rochester here

See Rebecca’s My Dakota in progress at Radius Books

Q&A with Rebecca and Sarah Rhodes on Timemachine

To read the Robert Klein Gallery Tripod Blog Q&A with Rebecca.

Read more about Magnum’s House of Pictures project in the New Yorker and see Alex’s photo of the day, April 24th.

Alex’s “The Suffering of Light” exhibition at Forma, Milan, featured in Italian Vogue.

WEATHER group show at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, June 21-Aug. 17, 2012

MY DAKOTA: A Special Photograph, A Special Night

©Alex Webb, Rebecca’s father at the “My Dakota” opening at the Dahl

It felt right that the first exhibition of “My Dakota” opened in the Black Hills of South Dakota where I grew up.  So many  friends — both old and new — showed up, including Ruth Brennan, the former Dahl director whom the gallery was named after where “My Dakota” is currently on exhibit.  Ruth is an amazing, dynamic woman who was the driving force behind the creation of this wonderful museum and performing arts center in Rapid City.

One of my favorite moments of the evening was photographed by Alex (above)– my 92-year-old dad looking at the photograph of himself that’s in the exhibition, and — just outside the frame — my 85-year-old mom walking not far behind.  A special photograph of a special night that I will long remember.––Rebecca Norris Webb

Link to “My Dakota,” which was recently featured on the New Yorker Photo Booth blog.

Link to “My Dakota” at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, June 1-Oct. 13, 2012.

©Alex Webb, “Lost and Loss” installation of “My Dakota” at the Dahl

UPCOMING EVENTS: JUNE & JULY

NEW YORK

––THURSDAY, JUNE 21, RICCO MARESCA GALLERY, NY: “Weather,” a group exhibition with a selection of photographs from MY DAKOTA, 6-8 pm.  The exhibition runs through August 17.

RAPID CITY, SD

––JUNE-SEPTEMBER 2012: Launch of OUR DAKOTA Flickr site, an online photographic community  This Flickr group is open to all photographers 15 and older with a present or past connection to South Dakota.  There will be three assignments posted during the course of the “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl, and the group will culminate in an “Our Dakota” slide show to be show both at the SD Festival of Books in Sioux Falls the last week in September 2012 and at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City on Friday, Oct. 5th, at 7pm.

––TUESDAY, AUGUST 7TH: “Slide Talk with Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb” at the “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl.  12-1pm.  Check the Dahl website midJune for more details about this free event.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

SATURDAY, JUNE 9,  AT LOOK3 PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

4-6pm Alex Webb in conversation with noted writer and cultural critic Geoff Dyer

6-7pm: Book signing with Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, and Geoff Dyer at the Second Street Gallery

9pm: “My Dakota” in the WORKS slide show

SNOWMASS, COLORADO:

TUESDAY, JULY 7-8pm:”Together and Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb,” Schermer Hall, Anderson Ranch Campus, Snowmass, Colorado.  Q&A with the Webbs and book signing of “The Suffering of Light” and “My Dakota” to follow.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

>Friday evening, Oct. 5, thru Sunday, Oct. 7 pm: FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ THE DAHL, Rapid City, South Dakota. Discount for members of the Dahl Arts Center.

Sunday, Oct. 21st through Sat., Oct. 27th, 2012: PROJECT WORKSHOP 2012 @ CAPTION GALLERY, DUMBO, BROOKLYN.  A small intimate workshop where participants spend a week editing and sequencing a long-term project, working on the text for it, and working with a designer on a cover. There will also be presentations about bookmaking including one by a photo book editor or publisher.  Former students are invited to apply, but other photographers will be considered as well.  This small workshop is almost full, so please contact Rebecca as soon as possible if you are interested: rebeccanorriswebb@yahoo.com.

ADDITIONAL LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

“My Dakota” on Time Magazine’s Light Box

Alex’s recent work on Treece, a toxic U.S. town, in The New York Times Magazine.

Alex’s interview with Alessia Glaviano for Italian Vogue

See Alex and Rebecca’s photos and others from Magnum’s House of Pictures project in Rochester here

See Rebecca’s My Dakota in progress at Radius Books

Q&A with Rebecca and Sarah Rhodes on Timemachine

To read the Robert Klein Gallery Tripod Blog Q&A with Rebecca.

Read more about Magnum’s House of Pictures project in the New Yorker and see Alex’s photo of the day, April 24th.

Alex’s “The Suffering of Light” exhibition at Forma, Milan, featured in Italian Vogue.

©Alex Webb, “My Dakota” at the Dahl, Rapid City, SD

My Dakota: S.D. Opening; New Yorker Photo Booth

©Alex Webb, Rebecca installing the “My Dakota” at the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, SD

Rebecca and I are very glad to be in Rapid City, South Dakota,  for the opening of her “My Dakota” exhibition at the Dahl Arts Center.   As one can see in these installation shots, Rebecca is echoing the form of the book through writing some of her text pieces directly on the wall.    

With this exhibition and book, Rebecca has managed to create something of poignant beauty and poetic resonance out of a family tragedy ––  her brother’s untimely death.  So this opening is particularly special because Rebecca’s father and mother, aged 92 and 85, are coming to the opening.

Also a nice coincidence: the New Yorker Photo Booth blog,  is running a piece on Rebecca’s book today.––Alex Webb                                                                                 

UPCOMING EVENTS: JUNE & JULY

NEW YORK

––THURSDAY, JUNE 21, RICCO MARESCA GALLERY, NY: “Weather,” a group exhibition with a selection of photographs from MY DAKOTA, 6-8 pm.  The exhibition runs through August 17.

RAPID CITY, SD

––FRIDAY, JUNE 1, RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA: “My Dakota” exhibition opening and book signing, Dahl Arts Center, 5-7pm.  The exhibition will run until October 13, 2012.

––FRIDAY, JUNE 1: Launch of OUR DAKOTA Flickr site, an online photographic community

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

SATURDAY, JUNE 9,  AT LOOK3 PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

4-6pm Alex Webb in conversation with noted writer and cultural critic Geoff Dyer

6-7pm: Book signing with Alex Webb, Rebecca Norris Webb, and Geoff Dyer at the Second Street Gallery

9pm: “My Dakota” in the WORKS slide show

SNOWMASS, COLORADO:

TUESDAY, JULY 7-8pm:”Together and Apart: The Photographs of Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb,” Schermer Hall, Anderson Ranch Campus, Snowmass, Colorado.  Q&A with the Webbs and book signing of “The Suffering of Light” and “My Dakota” to follow.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS WITH ALEX AND REBECCA

>Friday evening, Oct. 5, thru Sunday, Oct. 7 pm: FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ THE DAHL, Rapid City, South Dakota. Discount for members of the Dahl Arts Center.

ADDITIONAL LINKS FOR ALEX AND REBECCA:

Alex’s interview with Alessia Glaviano for Italian Vogue

See Alex and Rebecca’s photos and others from Magnum’s House of Pictures project in Rochester here

See Rebecca’s My Dakota in progress at Radius Books

Q&A with Rebecca and Sarah Rhodes on Timemachine

To read the Robert Klein Gallery Tripod Blog Q&A with Rebecca.

Read more about Magnum’s House of Pictures project in the New Yorker and see Alex’s photo of the day, April 24th.

Alex’s “The Suffering of Light” exhibition at Forma, Milan, featured in Italian Vogue.

©Alex Webb, Rebecca writing the “Lost and Loss” text during the installation of her “My Dakota” exhibition @ the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, South Dakota