lost in the Mail, Postcards from Ukraine
“I’ve experienced many tipping points in my life, small and large, the level of importance always varies dramatically. Some changed my life and others nudged me in a new direction, or, at the very least, opened my mind to something new. Living in Ukraine recently was a big tipping point for me, it opened doors I hardly imagined previously, including internalizing the Ukrainian plight. Recently, photographs we sent to friends in Ukraine were lost in the mail. Our friends went back to the post office again and insisting they search their mail storage, unbelievably, they were found. This episode was a small tipping point and reminded me of the photographs you see here. Taken with my Holga cameras, they were previously set aside for a bigger and more important project and I forgot about them. Some make me smile, some make me sad. They evoke wonderful memories of my time in Ukraine, despite the war, and the remarkable spirit of the Ukrainian people.” Claudia Toutain-Dorbec
A limited edition zine of 100 signed copies by the author and Sold with an original print
Pages: 28 / Full color
Format: 14x21.6 cm / 5.5x8.5”
ISBN 978-0-9802432-0-8
In Rust I Trust
"Rust is irresistible. Like kisses, it is transient; like memory, it is crumbling. Photography has another job. The images are caught, captured with no further change. Moment against motion, in this case the slow dissolve of a car in New Mexico or the more rapid dissolution in the wet climes of Oregon. Car bodies, color, and time are the themes. The photographic method brings a saturated aesthetic pleasure.
As soon as I heard the title of this new collection of Pierre Toutain-Dorbec’s work, I was hooked. We both inhabit the Rio Grande watershed, where old car bodies are used to shore up the banks of arroyos, our dry washes. When the monsoon season comes, the power of the flash floods is legendary. The rusting carcasses are iconic, our attempt to hold back the river of time though we know we can’t.
Pierre Toutain-Dorbec sees that the double-edged beauty in wreck and decay is not a contradiction. I, too, walk these arroyos and fall in love with the old car bodies. They are beings with soul, a byproduct of that lost America, yet they live on. Pierre lives in an America populated by these rusting cars, in northern New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon where he travels widely. Pierre hones in on the abstraction of decay, a painterly glaze here, a hood ornament there. He combines the eyes of a sculptor and of a photographer to encourage us to see the alchemy of rust, oxidation that occurs on an atomic level.." Joan Logghe, Poet Laureate of Santa Fe
A limited edition zine of 100 signed copies by the author and Sold with an original print
Pages: 28 / Full color
Format: 14x21.6 cm / 5.5x8.5”
ISBN 978-0-9802432-2-2