I See Beauty In This Life

'I See Beauty' - Rural California photos

ART

Patricia Yollin

Published 12:59 p.m., Wednesday, November 7, 2012  S.F. Chronicle

A young man gathers mulberry leaves on a silk farm in 1907. "Miss Wool California" of 1968 poses with a sheep. Forty-three years later, cowboys warm up at a rodeo in Salinas.

These people come alive in a new exhibition at the California Historical Society in San Francisco, titled "I See Beauty in This Life: A Photographer Looks at 100 Years of Rural California." Their images are among 150 or so pictures that show a side of the state that is little known and rarely seen.

"We're happy to buy our oranges from Esparto (Yolo County), but nobody even knows where it is," said writer and photographer Lisa M. Hamilton.

The exhibition she created represents a new direction for the 141-year-old nonprofit, inaugurating a "Curating California" program that invites accomplished state residents, such as Hamilton, to delve into the vast holdings of the historical society.

"What we really want to do is bring the collection out of the storage area," said Jessica Hough, managing curator of exhibitions. "We send somebody in and see what stimulates them."

Hamilton spent six months exploring the archives, which contain about 500,000 photographs, and a sister collection with 23,000 more images housed at the University of Southern California. The historical pictures she selected date back to a shot of a flour mill in 1880. She also included 24 large color photos she took last year - traveling 10,000 miles around the state - for her "Real Rural" multimedia project.

"When you picture rural California in your head, some very familiar images come up," Hamilton said. "The Central Valley and that landscape, maybe the timberlands in the far north or the deserts in the south. But those images are pretty limited."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/I-See-Beauty-Rural-California-photos-4016960.php#ixzz2BeuR15H5