Culture Surfing

ORAIEN CATLEDGE: The photographer holds up one of his images of Cabbagetown as he knew it more than 20 years ago.

Opal Gallery’s extending its exhibit of Oraien Catledge’s photos through Jan. 23.

From CL’s Chad Radford in his Nov. 23 article on the show:

The images present accidental landscapes disguised as portraits, as scene after scene of children and adults personifies the dilapidated surroundings. These stark black-and-white and rich sepia-toned photos are imbued with a quality that transcends time, capturing an era that feels much further away than the late ’70s and early ’80s. Much like Dorothea Lange’s Dust Bowl photos or Walker Evans’ Great Depression imagery, Catledge’s photographs embody the suffering and celebrations of a poor, undereducated white haven on the brink of disappearance.

Read the entire story, and watch/listen to the accompanying audio slideshow, which includes images you won’t find in the show.

Gallery hours are Thurs.-Sat., noon-7 p.m. Easy going if you venture out today!

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Sarah Hobbs

The Thanksgiving week might have slowed down openings this week, but plenty of good shows are continuing throughout this weekend. The best bets come from a diverse selection of photographers: Sarah Hobbs, Oraien Catledge, and Tierney Gearon. This is also the last weekend to catch work from Monica Cook and Howardena Pindell. Fill up your weekend plate with these tasty leftovers.

Emotional Management Sarah Hobbs. Through Jan. 9. Free. Thurs.-Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; additional hours by appointment. Solomon Projects, 1037 Monroe Drive. 404-875-7100. www.solomonprojects.com.

Continue reading “Weekend Arts Agenda: Thanksgiving Leftovers” »

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The exhibit Oraien Catledge: Cabbagetown, now on view at Opal Gallery, displays 30 of some 50,000 images taken by photographer Oraien Catledge in the small Atlanta neighborhood from the late 1970s through the ’90s. Here, Catledge discusses a few of the works in the show and some from his broader collection with CL’s Chad Radford and Opal Gallery director Connie Lewis.

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ORAIEN CATLEDGE: The photographer holds up one of his images of Cabbagetown as he knew it more than 20 years ago.

Oraien Catledge first stumbled upon Cabbagetown while sitting on his couch one evening in the fall of 1978. He was flipping through the local news channels when he came across a town meeting in which citizens were discussing the fate of their community. The nearly 100-year-old Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills had closed their doors for the last time, and a lot of the locals – vestiges of an honest-to-goodness factory town that stood in the mills’ shadows – were destitute. Many of the people living in Cabbagetown in the late ’70s were direct descendents of the workers imported from Appalachia to work at the mills since their construction in 1881. But much of the property would soon be up for sale to the rest of the city, and it seemed that the tight-knit community would unravel. “As they used to say, that was preee-sactly the moment that I learned about Cabbagetown,” Catledge chuckles through a bushy, snowy white mustache.

Catledge, 81, is an Oxford, Miss., native who moved to Atlanta in 1969 while working as a regional consultant for the American Association for the Blind. “I wasn’t a photographer back then and I knew nothing about photography, but I had an urge to do something creative,” he says. “I tried painting but the canvases just wouldn’t dry fast enough, so I went out and I got a camera.”

Catledge is legally blind, but dismisses his condition as a disadvantage. In a soft, grandfatherly voice, he says, “Oh … I can see a lot better than most people think I can.”

Continue Reading “Photographer Oraien Catledge remembers Cabbagetown”

(Photos by Joeff Davis)

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Teenage girl in dress sitting on step #309, 1982 by Oraien Catledge

TGIF, the weekend is here! Get some of your workday yayas out at one of these art events. This week’s agenda is loaded with nostalgia, celebrity, and packs some artist punch … literallly. As usual, read on for the rundown.

Continue reading “Weekend Arts Agenda: Broadening your horizons” »

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