We keep bumping into photographer John E. Ramspott, who has been photographing lots of ACP events this year for our friends at Burnaway. Keep up with John’s latest coverage on Burnaway’s flickrstream! (And while you’re at it, here’s ACP’s flickrstream.)

Thanks, John, and thanks, Burnaway!

(photo of Sally Mann by John E. Ramspott!)

Photo by Brant Sanderlin

From Howard Pousner’s article about Corinne Adams and ACP:

“”That’s the good thing about getting older,” said Adams, 60. “Completely planning something keeps the creativity out. It limits what can happen. I’ve learned to trust that letting go part and just let it be whatever it needs to be.”

In truth, that’s not much unlike the positive vibe she and photography curator Susan Todd-Raque brought to the founding of ACP, which has blossomed from modest beginnings involving 40 galleries in 1999 to a heady slate of exhibits, lectures, public art, programs for professional artists and participation opportunities for amateurs that reaches more than 100,000 people annually.

A large and grateful Thank You to the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund for awarding ACP with a 2011 grant for $25,000! And big thanks to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who restored arts funding in the Atlanta budget and announced it at the MAAF luncheon. Glad to hear it, Mr. Mayor!

From Midtown Artists Thrilled with Festival Acceptance:

“Photographer Patrick Heagney, who is represented by Kai Lin Art in Midtown, fully supports ACP’s acceptance into Festival of Light. “I’m hoping ACP’s acceptance into FoL will cause it to gain even more local attention and help it begin to get some significant national and international attention.”

Heagney explained that for the local Midtown photographers it will mean more opportunity but will require artists to put forth more effort. “It means both an increased opportunity to get noticed by an out-of-town crowd, and it means that we’ll all have to step our game up to take full advantage of the increased exposure,” said Heagney.”

Thanks to Felicia Feaster and The Atlantan for featuring Atlanta Celebrates Photography in their latest issue!

We couldn’t be happier about this news just sent to our email list: “Bank of America Becomes New Presenting Sponsor of ACP“. Please read an article about this great news at ArtsCriticATL.

From Atlanta Celebrates Photography throughout month, by Catherine Fox. Also, Photographer ‘forcing accidents to happen’ – Native Atlantan Tierney Gearon blends intention and intuition as she works, by Catherine Fox.

“Thanks to the efforts of Atlanta Celebrates Photography, the home-grown organization dedicated to promoting the art of the lens, photographic work of every description reigns supreme every fall. And not just in galleries and museums across the state.

You’ll encounter it just about everywhere you look. For example: Sublime Doughnuts in Midtown, the Smyrna Public Library, the REI sporting-goods store near Clairmont Road, Backstage Restaurant and Lounge in College Park. You get the picture.

During the 11 years since its inception, ACP has evolved into one of Atlanta’s liveliest arts institutions. In addition to exhibits, its programs encompass lectures, public art projects services for professional artists and participation opportunities for amateurs.

An interview with Amy Miller about ACP and this month’s calendar of photography from “City Cafe” on WABE.

Tierney Gearon, who’ll be an ACP 11 Lecture Series speaker on Oct. 29th, has a feature by Felicia Feaster in the latest issue of The Atlantan. Check out page 50 of the Sept/Oct issue.

ACP is very pleased to have been included in the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund’s Atlanta Arts Recovery Initiative. See the press release below. A new logo will be added to our sponsors, straightaway! Thank you very much, Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund.

Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund Recovery May 2009 Grants

Great to see Beth Lilly’s forthcoming project “Gifted” noted over on Creative Loafing’s blog “Fresh Loaf“.

Writer Jeremy Abernathy reminded me this weekend of the review he wrote for ArtVoices Magazine of the ACP 10 Public Art Project “Within Our Gates”. Have a look!

Two great notices for ACP in year-end wrap-ups. One from the AJC, the other from Creative Loafing:

“ATLANTA CELEBRATES PHOTOGRAPHY has offered the city significant commissioned public art for a decade. This year, ACP turned up the heat with Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry’s “Within Our Gates” (Oct. 5-25). Installed in the Irwin Street water tower in the Old Fourth Ward, the work was a trenchant homage to Atlanta’s history of civil rights and protest from the people. Multimedia projections, atmospheric graffiti and a circulating tide pool all served as fitting metaphors for change burbling up from below. When it came to dissecting Atlanta’s fractured history, McCallum and Tarry demonstrated that sometimes outsiders have the best insight.” — Cinqué Hicks [freshloaf]

“Public art: “Within Our Gates” in the Old Fourth Ward. Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry’s multisensory evocation of the civil rights era in an old water tower was a resonant matching of subject and site. Curated by Lisa Kurzner, it was sponsored by Atlanta Celebrates Photography, which continues to expand its contributions to Atlanta’s cultural life.” – Catherine Fox [ajc]

From “Photographers Immortalize Contemporary Atlanta”

“Photography is under fire. Film is on its last legs, hobbyists in major cities are told their snapshots of American landmarks threaten national security and budgets for newspaper photojournalists are rapidly dwindling amid shrinking circulation.”

Pages 50-53, by Felicia Feaster

The AJC took another look at the ACP 10 Public Art project “Within Our Gates” at the water tower in the Old Fourth Ward. The installation is only open for three more days; this Thursday, Friday & Saturday. I don’t have a workable link to the AJC site, so here’s the review, in full:

VISUAL ARTS
Tower setting powerful for ’60s video montage

By Catherine Fox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, October 19, 2008

> The project: “Within Our Gates,” a three-channel video installation inside a century-old water tower by Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry.

> The back story: The sound-and-image piece stands, like much of these artists’ work, at the intersection of race and memory. Even the location is symbolic: The Old Fourth Ward has an important place in the civil rights movement, and the 100-foot-tall tower is a relic of the cotton industry. The video is drawn from news footage of the civil rights movement and its opponents.

> Be sure to: Stop and listen to the speech in the anteroom. You might surmise that the stirring words about protecting liberty and freedom date from 1776. In fact, and ironically, Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivered the speech in the 1960s in response to desegregation. It is a telling counterpoint to the revolution depicted inside, where scenes of marches in particular suggest the tides of change and the force of will that eventually drowned out the words and ways of Wallace and his ilk.

> See it because: It’s the most sophisticated and important public art project in Atlanta in recent memory. To stand inside this unexpectedly cathedral-like space and watch images flicker on the scarred surface of the interior as the insistent rhythms and passionate voices of gospel/protest music resound around you is a powerful experience.

> The 411: “Within Our Gates” runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday; at Auburn Avenue and Irwin Street. Free. A project of Atlanta Celebrates Photography.

Atlanta Style and Design has a feature article on ACP 10 in their Fall 2008 edition. The article begins on page 66.

“Everyone is a photographer,” says Corrine Adams, a co-founder of ACP and a fine art photographer. “It’s a medium that begs for inclusion and sharing and cross-fertilizing. My hope is that everyone will get involved, whether you’re a pro or an amateur. I don’t think we have to choose between being something for the masses or something for artists. We have segments of our festival that speak to each of those audiences.”

Check out the September/October issue of Photograph Magazine for a profile of Amy Miller. Look for this cover.

Amy Miller, Executive Director of ACP, can be found in the summer issue of Atlanta Style and Design.