The Recorder – Exploring the patina: Photo exhibit at Greenfield Community Television zooms in on the surface of things

For the next three months, the work of a Greenfield photographer will be featured at Greenfield Community Television as part of the studio’s rotating exhibit of “lobby artists.”

“I’m very excited about it and very grateful to GCTV for providing me the opportunity to do this,” said Greenfield-based photographer Craig “C” Solomon Holmes. 

Other artists who have been featured in the past include Edmond LeClerc, Maricella Obando Moya, Peter Ruhf and KC Scott. 

Originally from Lenox, Holmes is a photographer known for his abstract revelations. The “Patina” exhibit, which captures the “captivating beauty of patina,” officially opened on Oct. 27 with an artist reception in the lobby of GCTV.

Holmes found his muse for the exhibit in an old furniture warehouse at the end of Hawthorn Street in Pittsfield, he said. Covered in heavy patina, the forgotten structure became a subject for him to explore and immortalize through photography.

“I just became kind of fascinated by it and shooting all the different sections (of the warehouse),” he said. “You can isolate the different sections and it becomes … its own aesthetically pleasing composition.”  

The “layers of paint-over-paint textures” reminded him of the Play-Doh he played with as a child.

“Some sections even resembled Rothko paintings or microscopic images at the cellular level,” he said. 

The close-up, abstract photography was inspired by an early morning hike through October Mountain State Forest.

“As I began to zoom in on this old rock quarry, isolating different areas, I discovered how even the slightest movement to the left or right would create a new and aesthetically pleasing composition comprised of abstract shapes and color,” he said. 

Other photographs in the exhibit are images from “his days of shepherding,” he said.

In one image, a goat is captured “not being very good at hide-and-seek.”

Holmes said he started with photography in 2005 while he was touring around the south and southwestern portion of the United States. His wife at the time gave him a camera so he would have something to do between cities. 

“(Photography) gives me an excuse to do things I wouldn’t otherwise bother, like getting up at 3 a.m. to catch the sunrise on Mount Greylock, or go hiking to find waterfalls,” he said. “Things like that.” 

For more information about C. Solomon Holmes and his exhibition, you can visit csolomonholmes.com.

Artists who would like for their art to be displayed in the GCTV lobby for three months should email their name, contact information and a few samples of work to Garry Longe at [email protected].

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at [email protected] or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.