By Suzanne M Walsh
“I have been in love with pinhole photography since I was an adolescent!” says long-time Conesville artist Marianne Neuber about her retrospective “ARTFUL EXPRESSIONS ~ PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY and QUILTS”, currently on exhibit at the Gilboa Museum and Nicholas J. Juried History Center.
This show is worth seeing and for several reasons. Right from the start, what jumps out at the viewer first is the visually unique mixing of two substantially different mediums: 3-dimensionally-sculpted handmade quilts counterposed with dream-like--almost fairytale-looking--portraits created with a pinhole camera constructed by the artist from a simple cardboard box.
Luckily, you can still see this exhibition for yourself, but hurry—the museum closes for the 2025 season on October 12.
Equally worthwhile is the unusual backstory of the artist-photographer, Marianne Neuber herself.
The thoroughness of Neuber’s photographic expertise is rare, having its beginning when she was a young girl in Germany and was entered into her choice of formal apprenticeship with a master photographer.
“Of those years,” Neuber recalls, “the work was very intense, and very detailed. Even though we only adolescents, we had to learn everything about photography.” She laughs remembering, “We even had to know how lenses were made, including the theories behind the science!”
That was for studying the science involved with the lense-based camera.
She also was taken on a deep dive into the study of the other kind—the older pinhole camera, based on the pre-lense science of a single pin-prick pierced into the front panel of an ordinary box with a piece of film (or light-sensitive paper) cut to fit on the back panel inside the same box. Positioned this way, across from the tiny pinhole in the box, the available light streaming in from outside the pinhole would be “captured” on the film (or screen of some kind) inside.
This, by the way, is the same technique Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci used to introduce their stunningly realistic portrayals of linear perspective in the late 14th century, as the crowning recognizable characteristic identified with Renaissance art.
Turning to look at one of the portraits on the exhibit wall behind her, Neuber says: “That was when and where I first learned about the pinhole camera and its special, unusual qualities, and I have loved experimenting with it ever since.”
And what about the sculpture-like quilts included in her retrospective--how do they fit in with her life story?
“Ah! The quilts figured largely in my life starting back when I first moved to Conesville in the ‘70s.”
Neuber smiles at this, remembering. “I met such a fine community of incredibly talented and warm-hearted women quiltmakers here, that I decided I wanted to become a creative quiltmaker like them, too.”
And she has. Neuber has crafted an incredible series of quilts—many of which are reversible, making them “double” 3-D quilt sculptures, and she has remained steadfast friends with the women who warmly shared with her their country craft of quilting.
Delving deeper into yet another level of what makes Neuber’s show very worthwhile to see before it closes, is the subject matter of her pinhole portraits series. The people who she approached to sit for her (and pinhole photography requires a bit of sitting due to the length of time exposure) were family members and friends from the Art Department at City College where she received her MFA in Art History and Museum Studies, following her BA in Fine Arts.
“I was surprised how enthusiastic and encouraging my sitters were—everyone I asked agreed to engage with my experimenting without any hesitation.”
This “experiment” involved Neuber’s idea of placing film shaped to the curve inside the oatmeal box she had constructed her pinhole camera from. While the resulting portrait would be recognizable as the sitter, Neuber hoped the gentle curvature of the film inside would also lend a gentle bit of distortion, adding perhaps a slightly phantasmagorical, dream-like effect. The experiment was very successful.
On overhearing some of the comments after distributing the portraits to her sitters, she asked if they would be willing to write their reactions to seeing themselves portrayed in this almost surreal way directly on the prints, which they willingly did. This very interesting interactive engagement resulted in the subjects of the exhibition becoming also the viewers of the exhibition of themselves, which, in turn, becomes the exhibition experienced by the third-party viewers experiencing this exhibit today.
If all this might sound a little confusing, it’s only because the sensation described as a viewer to this exhibition is being understood only through the words used here, but experiencing the novelty of this experiment in person is quite a different, refreshing tutorial in the nature and layers art-viewing as a participatory art form in lieu of a passive one.
Come see for yourself.
And what about the future of the centuries-old pinhole photography craft in relation to the digital age in the future? “Oh, there’ll always be a special place for it.” Says Neuber convincingly. “Digital photography is a passive engagement of collecting information, and often can turn out to be quite temporary—one mistaken click could delete all in an instant.
“Pinhole photography, on the other hand, is an active craft engaging one’s entire creative being--from making the camera, choosing your subject, sitting with your subject for the required time and finally, the warmth and joy generated from the self-created result.”
No wonder Neuber has remained dedicated to pinhole photography almost all of her life. “I’ve been very blessed. I love what I do.”
(The “ARTFUL EXPRESSIONS ~ PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY and QUILTS” exhibition can be viewed at the Gilboa Museum and Nicholas J. Juried History Center on weekends during regular museum hours, or by appointment, until October 12 when the museum’s 2025 season comes to a close)
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