Ice Houses

Left: 'Untitled #1' - Catherine Opie
Right Top: 'Spider Island' - Scott Peterman Right Bottom: 'Kents Landing' - Scott Peterman

About 5 or 6 years ago I was browsing Amazon.com and I came across a book of photographs by Catherine Opie. The book was called 'Skyways and Icehouses'. I put it on my wish list where its remained ever since. When I first found the book it was listed at something like $25.00. Well, now it's available only as a collectable and the minimum price I've seen anywhere for the same book , and thats for a used copy, is about $88.00. So I'm kicking myself I didn't buy it when I first found it. Because I still love her Icehouse photographs. Opie took the photographs as part of a project she did during a yearlong residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I understand that the Icehouse photographs were exhibited in a very large format which must have made the experience of standing beside them really incredible.

A few years later I came across the Ice Shack photographs of Scott Peterman. Again the photographs have been exhibited in a large format: 30" x 38 1/2" according to an article in Art in America magazine written by Melissa Kuntz.

I love the vast whiteness of the landscape, the minimalist ice shack structures. These photographs embody for me what I find so beautiful about winter.