Woody Packard

Words + Pictures

Other Stuff

Here's a list of other projects, shows, and things I've been working on. Of course the biggest project has been the three years I've spent in Mongolia from 2012–2016. Those notes are listed separately.

Books

Nomadic Transformation
Nomadic Transformation. During three years in Mongolia, (one in the rural west, two in the country's capital city,) I had a chance to observe changes in the culture that were not always acknowledged by Mongolians I knew there. A preview, or you can buy it at blurb.com

Learning Mongolia
Learning Mongolia. What I've discovered about living in Mongolia during 2012 and 2013. A book of essays and photography that describes some of the process of looking closely at a different culture with the eyes of a foreigner. A preview can be found, or you can buy it at blurb.com

Sand Rock Water Time Sand, Rock, Water, Time. Photography with a theme of erosion, small change over great periods of time—from southern Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef, and South Dakota's Badlands. Available at Blurb or as a downloadable pdf (1.5mb)

Hope's Quilts Hope’s Quilts. When she died at age 89, my mother was just slowing down enough for me to catch up to her prolific post-mom quilting career. Two years earlier, I had just completed Hope‘s Quilts. A look at this partial record of what she's been working on for the past thirty five years will give you a humbling pause. Available at Blurb or as a downloadable pdf (1.5mb)

I was lucky enough to make it back to see her during her last weeks, and to read this tribute at her funeral.

Wild, Possibly Wild, Possibly. Photography and poetry (by Kath Anderson) about fifteen miles of canyon that runs through southern Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. This is an old project that was revived by the advances made in on-demand printing, especially at the price and quality available at Blurb. Also available as a screen-readable, low res downloadable pdf (1.5mb)

Two Years Two Years. Between 2007 and 2009 I spent two years as a graduate student, living in secluded Alfred, NY, and bending away from the world of commerce to that of academia and art. Two Years is my 2009 MFA thesis, documenting my show and some of the process that lead up to it. Most of this work concerns media's role in the perception of long periods of time. Printed at Blurb or downloadable as a pdf (5mb)

Shows

Know by Sight Known By Sight, May 25–June18, 2010. At the Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester gallery. The reception will be on June 4, part of the First Fridays event for June. It's very much about evidence of long change that is left embedded in the rock that makes up the surface we walk around on. That evidence, left in the original recording medium of the earth, is there for interpretation, re-recording, and re-imagining by several of our more recent media. Here is the show invitation, as well as a quicktime tour.

In May 2009 I had my graduate thesis show at the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery in Alfred, New York, sharing the gallery with classmate Rebekkah Palov. The show consisted of twenty-six installed prints and five video pieces that alternated between a single channel and corner projection two-channel pieces in a seperately walled area of the gallery. Here are some documentation photos. The long version is in Two Years above.

Video and Sound

Before the fall of 2007 I had never shot a frame of video or recorded any sound despite many years as a still photographer. Most of these are pieces I started or completed as part of my masters program at Alfred University in Electronic Integrated Arts. See selected Video and Sound.

Current Projects

Driving from Rochester to Alfred weekly I travel through a patch of ground that is criss-crossed with roads and highways, yet sees very little foot traffic. It is surrounded by parks on two sides, but during the past eight years I don't think I have ever seen anyone walking there. For a long time I have wondered about this and other places like it, and this fall I started to photograph there. It is hard to take everything in at one gulp, for the scale of these roads is way beyond the scale of a pedestrian, and there are efforts made to prevent foot traffic, from signs warning against tresspassing to chain link fences. Here is a sample of what I've found, which for now I am calling Intersections. Of course these and other sites I have been working on have already been covered by Google from above.

Hubbard

Remembering another best dog.