Studio Day 2

Larry Wolf, Cyano on Linen (2026)

Larry Wolf, Drawing with Used Risograph Master (2026)

Larry Wolf, Cyano on Coffee Filter from Drawing (2026)

Studio Day 1

Larry Wolf, Cyano and Sumi (2026)

Larry Wolf, Cyano on Filter Paper (2026)

Larry Wolf, Cyano on Linen (2026)

Stolen? Borrowed?

Larry Wolf, Adam at the AI (2025)
gift from Robert Allerton

talking with Karen about Minor White

another visitor in the gallery asked: Minor White?

Yes, the photographer

He stole my friend Sheri's husband at a workshop

Stole him? Or borrowed for the workshop?

Stole him. 

 

The student so enraptured by the teacher to be stolen away

Tim's suggestion to actively misread misremember reimagine

To embody and make it my own.

Of all the bastards

These are the most beautiful

The ones I call my sons.

Minor White, Memorable Fancies 

15 December 1954

Cyano Sunday

Larry Wolf, Cyanotype #1 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Cyanotype #2 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Cyanotype #3 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Cyanotype #4 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Cyanotype #5 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Cyanotype #6 (2025)

Created at a workshop led by Taylor at Lot'sa.

The text in the prints comes from my application to the Allerton/Hood Residency: raging, river, desire, lines, amateur. Howl is a reference to Allen Ginsberg's poem.

Reflective Saturday

The week ended with a "no" from the Allerton Hood Residency, though also encouraging future projects. As much as I've been focused on the possibility of that residency, I'm pausing in the gap of not knowing what's next. 

I went through my application material and pulled out some key phrases that speak of my art practice regardless of project or proposal. I've been talking with other artists. Here are words I'm reflecting on.

The Magic of Walking with a Camera

A Practice Retreat - A Portal

To Be Held - To Hold a Camera

Desire Lines - Traces in the Land

Inner Queer - Public and Private

Amateur = Love

Raging River

... feel its force

... see where it takes me

Trail of Death 

... traumatic clearing

... survivance 

Dawn & Dusk

... the sun is slant

... the mind is open

Dreaming

The Artist Is Dangerous

Dragons & Demons

Fire - In the Dark of Winter

Crucible - Cauldron - Caldera

Raw Edges - Deep Surprise - Not Knowing

Personal Inner Wild

Generative Spark - Something New Emerges

Creating Meaning

The Sphinx

A pair of sphinx face Allerton House, invoking Oscar Wilde's poem. Those words, too, echo in my mind.

Larry Wolf, View from My Porch (2025)

It All Came Together

New York and San Francisco 1945-1946

Meyer Shapiro and his approach to art history struck home. Ann Armstrong loaned me the Wolfflin Principles of Art History. The Newhalls guided and became fast friends. Stieglitz was met! That lump of creativeness and spirituality broke out of its poured concrete straight jacket.

"Have you ever been in love?"

Yes.

"Then you can photograph."

 ...

The teaching job at California School of Fine Arts became available, the Newhalls recommended me to Ansel and I appeared in SF on my birthday, 1946.

All the background of science, art, teaching, photographing, living with people, writing, traveling was suddenly channeled into teaching at CSFA. I felt that I did not know enough.

The lessons learned from the Boleslavsky went into effect. The principles of art history were converted to use by photographers; the psychological approach learned from Shapiro went into effect, the idea of the equivalent from Stieglitz went into the curriculum; technique was learned from Ansel at a high rate of speed and his Zone System became my staple.

...

I taught five days and three nights a week for the first two years. There was little time to see the city ... I got to know the city from student's pictures. The first shooting of my own was a kind of compulsion to work at Land's End. Illustrations to fit the Amputations verses as equivalents was the first bite into serious photographing since Oregon.

Minor White, Memorable Fancies, 1948
edited by Todd Cronnan and Peter Bunnell (2025)

Larry Wolf, On My Birthday - Flight to San Francisco (1974)

Snowy Afternoon at Graceland

Larry Wolf, Allerton Family (2025)
Samuel Allerton, Pamelia Allerton, Agnes Allerton, Kate Johnston, Allerton Johnston

Robert Allerton and John Gregg Allerton are not buried here. Their ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean by their home in Hawaii.