Memories: Photographer Tara Wray Opens at AVA Gallery

In Book of Sons, one of several new exhibitions at AVA Gallery, photographer and filmmaker Tara Wray is capturing her family’s story with an artist’s eye. She explains her determination to document “the world we’ve made for ourselves in rural Vermont,” as having been influenced by both past and future generations:

“I believe that what is safely contained in a book (or photo or movie or story) lives forever. That’s why I document my family and the things I love so obsessively. For safekeeping. I learned this from my grandmother, who left behind several self-published books of family lore that I only recently re-discovered, and which was a significant inspiration for this work. As with much of my work, Book of Sons revolves around the notion of wanting to connect with loved ones even after I’m gone.”

I see something yet again in Wray’s photograph, Fire (photo, top). When asked to tell me about the photo, she said it was taken in Woodstock, Vermont in July 2018. A building on Central Street was ablaze; flames eventually destroyed Pi Brick Oven Trattoria and the offices of the Vermont Standard newspaper. The fire was said to be the worst in Woodstock’s history, and later thought to be arson. Wray said, “ . . . I had seen the smoke from Barnard and told my sons we had to get to town because there was a big fire somewhere. I knew I wanted to get a picture. Plus, we had to go to the post office. . .”

Our memories, and hence our stories, of momentous public occasions are often entwined with details of our personal lives. On a national scope, one can reach back to the Kennedy assassination, in which my own retelling of that event (and this is famously true for most people) always includes a recitation of what I was doing when I heard the news. (In my case, I was in a 6th grade parochial school class singing “Red River Valley;” we were immediately hustled off to the parish church next door to pray.) Likewise for memories of the 9/11 attack (on couch at home, recuperating from cancer treatment), or even lighter events like the Pittsburgh Pirates winning the World Series in 1960 (2nd grade, same parochial school, released early while the junior high girls shrieked in triumph in the alley outside.)

For Wray’s sons, witnessing the “worst fire in Woodstock’s history,” will likely remain in their general, as well as their olfactory, memories. (“We smelled of smoke the rest of the day,” Wray recalled.) But bound up in the memory, as in the photograph, may be something like this: “And then we headed for the local post office. That’s why I (or my brother) was carrying the cardboard package . . .” And I, viewing Wray’s photograph, am pondering the ferocity of the fire, even as I am wondering about the more personal part of the story, like the question of what is in that box.

Tara Wray is a Vermont-based, multidisciplinary artist with over 20 years of professional experience as a writer, photographer, and filmmaker of autobiographical-based work. Recently, she founded the nonprofit arts organization, Too Tired Project, which seeks to advance mental health advocacy through photography. Her most recent photobook is Year of the Beast, published by Too Tired Press in 2021. For more information, click here for her website. Photo by kind permission of the artist. Book of Sons is on view until June 4.

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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.