Pinky Bass

Pinky M. M. Bass (born 1936) is an American photographer, known for her work in pinhole photography.

Bass, a resident of Fairhope, Alabama, has exhibited at a number of museums including the Asheville Art Museum, Birmingham Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama, Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama, National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina among others.^[1]

Well known for her work in pinhole photography,^[2] Bass has is in the collection of the Polaroid Corporation.^[3] Bass has taught numerous workshops in pinhole camera across the United States including EMRYS Foundation, Penland School of Crafts^[4] and University of Memphis^[5] and Space One Eleven. Known for her portable pop-up pinhole cameras, The first of these cameras was a giant pinhole she made out of a pop-up camper -- "Pinky's Portable Pop-up Pinhole Camera and Darkroom".^[6] She made this piece for the "Itinerant Photography Project" in 1989.^[7]

In March 1997, Bass was honored by the Georgia Commission on Women for "Georgia Women in the Visual Arts".^[8]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Bass has had over 40 solo exhibitions, many of which traveled.

• 2006: BodyWorks at the University of Montevallo, Bloch Hall Gallery in Spring 2006.^[9]
• 2007: Bass' work was chosen by curator, Jon Coffelt as the inaugural artist for the new book arts program at SPACE Gallery in New York, NY. Bass exhibited her Cuerpos Santos Series.^[10] SPACE Gallery, New York, 2007.

Exhibitions with others

• For Donna' Barrister's Gallery curated by Deborah Luster featured works by Pinky Bass, Ruth Marten, Danna Moore, Laura Noland-Harter, Donna Service, Barrister's Gallery, New Orleans.
• The Lensless View: Contemporary Pinhole Photography curated by Diana H. Bloomfield along with work by Rebecca Sexton Larson, Scott McMahon, Christopher Sims, Sarah Van Keuren and Sam Wang.
• (Id) An Exhibition of Self Portraiture, 2006, along with Dieter Appelt, Judy Dater, Nate Larson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Constance Thalken and Bill Thoma.^[11]
• "Voices Rising: Alabama Women at the Millennium by the Alabama State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.^[12] This exhibition was made into a video presentation (also called Voices Rising) that ran on Alabama Public Television,^[13]
• On/of Paper curated by Pieter Favier included artists from across the country illustrating the diversity of paper, a medium many art critics may overlook. Each artist featured used paper in some fashion to create their featured art. Bass showed a series of her hand-stitched photography at Space 301 in Mobile, Alabama.
• Politics, Politics: Nice Artists Explore the Political Landscape curated by Anne Arrasmith and Peter Prinz of Space One Eleven. Included Clayton Colvin, Peggy Dobbins, Randy Gachet, binx Newton, Arthur Price, John Trobaugh, Paul Ware, and Stan Woodard.
• Anthropology: Revisited, Reinvented, Reinterpreted, 2009, along with the work of Lee Isaacs, Karen Graffeo, Sara Garden Armstrong, Janice Kluge, Joel Seah, The Chadwick's, Mitchell Gaudet, Kahn and Selesnick, Mona Hatoum, Beatrice Coron, Kelly Grider, Laura Gilbert, among others. The exhibition was curated by Jon Coffelt and Maddy Rosenberg for Central Booking in Brooklyn, NY.

Awards

• Artist Residency, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY 1988
• Interdisciplinary Grant (Regional Artist Project) for "The Itinerant Photographer" 1989
• North Carolina Visual Artistic Fellowship Grant 1993
• North Carolina Visual Arts Project Grant 1992
• Alabama Fellowship Grant, Alabama State Council on the Arts 1991
• Site Sculpture Grant "Big Box Camera", Arts Festival of Atlanta, GA 1990
• International Print Exhibition Award, Print Club, Philadelphia, PA 1990
• Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship 1995
• Resen Ceramic Colony Residency (Catalog Photographer), Republic of Macedonia 1997
• Residency, Western Carolina University, Cullowee, NC 2000
• Residency, Oregon College of Art & Craft, Portland, Oregon 2004

Publications with contributions by Bass

• Tangle of Complexes: Photographing in Mexico. Birmingham, Ala.: Space One Eleven, 1996. Includes Pinky/MM Bass; exhibition catalogue; text in English and Spanish; first edition; paperback, 24 pages, 28 cm. The Women in Photography International Archive (now within Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University) has a copy (as noted in "Publications centered on single photographers: Books A–C."
• How to make a PinHole Camera on pages 15 and 23 from The Book of Alternative Processes by James Christopher, Delmar Press, Albany, NY, 2001, Dewey, 771. ISBN 0766820777.
• The Polaroid Book. By Barbara Hitchcock, Steve Crist, Taschen, 2005 Hardback. 400 pages. ISBN 3-8228-3072-0.
• Pinhole Photography: Rediscovering a Historic Technique. E. Renner, 1995, 288pp.
• Sleep: Bedtime Reading. By Roger Gorman and Robert Peacock. Universe Publishing, 1998. 96pp ISBN 9780789301123.
• Red Bluff Review. By Sonny Brewer, 1995.

Film

• Coat of Many Colors,] directed by Michelle Forman and Carolyn Hales, 2001 documentary for television featured Pinky Bass as herself.^[14]
• "Memento Mori: Positive/Negative" contains black and white images. Alabama Public Television.
• "Working Proof" on YouTube is a Butoh performance by Pinky Bass filmed by Doug Baulos at Space One Eleven, Birmingham, Alabama on 2-02-07

References

1. Huntsville Museum of Art, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Mobile Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts: as one of twelve participants in "Voices Rising: Alabama Women at the Millennium"; "Professor Elected for National Exhibit", University of Alabama at Birmingham press release, 24 March 2000. Bass is mentioned as among "13 exciting photographers" (and a list of 14) participating in the exhibition "Making Pictures" at Asheville Art Museum: "Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC, Features American Photography", Carolina Arts, June 2000. Birmingham Museum of Art: "Museum Hosts 50th Anniversary Party and Statewide Premiere of Documentary on Alabama Artists". Contemporary Arts Museum Houston: Bass is listed as among the 22 participants in The International Pinhole Photography Exhibition, June 30–September 9, 1990, Exhibition History, 1990s, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. High Museum of Art: as mentioned in an auction page for her work Aburrations II, the Light Factory. Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art: Bass is mentioned as one of 13 participants in "Pure Light: Southern Pinhole Photography", 2003. "Pure Light: Southern Pinhole Photography", website of Jan Kapoor.
2. www.carolinaarts.com/405upstairs.html
3. http://www.polaroid.com/studio/polaroidbook.html
4. Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
5. EMRYS Foundation: EMRYS Foundation. University of Memphis: "Lectures", Number, no. 37, Winter 2000 (PDF).
6. The camera is mentioned by Christopher James, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes (Thomson, 2002; ISBN 0-7668-2077-7), 15. This part of the book is reproduced within the publisher's sample PDF.
7. Christopher James, The Pinhole", chap. 1 of The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes (PDF).
8. "HR 455 - 'Georgia Women's History Month'; recognize month of March, 1997"
9. "Body Works", University of Montevallo solo exhibition
10. "Cuerpos Santos Series images shown here" Colophon.
11. The Light Factory, Charlotte, North Carolina, Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film
12. National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA)
13. Alabama Public Television, "Voices Rising"
14. Alabama State Council for the Arts

External links

• "Coat of Many Colors"
• Alabama Public Television
• University of Montevallo shows an example of her photography with hand-stitching.
• Pinhole Camera Homepage shows an example of Bass pinhole camera work
• The Light Factory shows en example of her hand-stitched sculpture
• Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts Pensacola Junior College, "Pinhole Visions" Pensacola, Florida, 2006
• EMRYS Foundation, Greenville, South Carolina lists Bass pinhole workshop
• the Barristers Gallery New Orleans, Louisiana 2005 Group exhibition
• Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Winston-Salem, North Carolina 2003 Group Exhibition
• Creative Loafing Charlotte, North Carolina 2006
• "The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes'", Examples of Bass work on pg. 15
• Georgia Southern University, (George-Anne) Southern Daily critic Vanessa Keber Statesboro, Georgia 1999
• Number: Inc. #37, page 13 lists a Bass lecture at University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee