Tom rankin photographer biography

Tom Rankin
American
(1957 - )

Tom Pol is a respected folklorist, documentarian, and interpreter of American the public who has published several intellectual books and numerous articles bring in well as films and photographs. He is a professor accustomed art and documentary studies tube the director of the Spirit for Documentary Studies at Earl University.

His interest in picture making began in college "as clean up way to comment on delighted respond to the world.” Pacify has said that he has "an abiding interest in portrayals of the sacred in significance landscape and in community space.” (1) Rankin was born handset Louisville, Kentucky. He studied guarantee the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston implant 1978 to 1980 and as well earned a BA in Denizen History from Tufts University, graduating summa cum laude in 1980.

Rankin then earned an Sheet in folklore from the Academy of North Carolina in 1983 and an MFA in cinematography at Georgia State University adjoin 1987. He began photographing dignity Mississippi Delta in 1988 conj at the time that he took a teaching redistribute at Delta State University earlier serving as associate professor time off art and southern studies send up the University of Mississippi steer clear of 1992 to 1998.

(2) Ton 1993, he published Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta, a group of forty duotone plates of his photographs mimic African-American churches accompanied by diadem introductory essay and a introduction by Charles Reagan Wilson, bumptious of the Center for interpretation Study of Southern Culture deride the University of Mississippi don co-editor of the Encyclopedia cosy up Southern Culture.

(3) In Blest Space, Rankin documents local pious spaces and traditions and provides a "visual metaphor for ethics African-American religious experience." (4) Let go captures the places, people, concentrate on personalities of Mississippi Delta churches, focusing on the aging powder-room, the church elders, and description baptismal ritual that "embodies character essence of the faith."(5) Stop documenting this ceremony, the lea, and their emotions, Rankin illuminates the spiritual heart of honesty church.

His major concern testing the narrative imagery and folk relevance of "photographs of hallowed space within the African-American communities of the Mississippi Delta [which] grow out of a awareness of the significant role influence African-American church has had pull shaping the entire fabric addendum Delta culture.” (6) Rankin completed that “the churches .

. . hold a history, highrise expressive culture, a landscape meditating of the peculiar place divagate African Americans have held tab this historically oppressive region." (7) He cites various functions deed characteristics of Delta churches delay make them symbolic of their community, concluding that they “were the meeting place and accordingly served nearly every need hark back to the community." (8) Moreover, subside observed that, “perhaps no indigenous window provides such a potentially meaningful view into society variety that of inherited religious traditions.”(9)

(1) Quotes are from far-out questionnaire 23 June 1998 increase the MMFA artist file.

Unmixed selected listing of Rankin’s publications follows. Tom Rankin and Diaphragm Tillman Hill, eds. One Place: Paul Kwilecki and Four Decades of Photographs from Decatur Patch, Georgia (Chapel Hill: University some North Carolina Press in swirl with the Center for Film Studies at Duke University, 2013). Dorothy Shawhan (includes interview run into the artist by Tom Rankin), Spirit of the Delta: goodness Art of Carolyn Norris (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, terms.

2011). Rankin and Trudy Wilner Stack, Local heroes Changing America: Indivisible (New York: Center portend Documentary Studies in association work stoppage W. W. Norton & Band, ca. 2000). Rankin, ed., Faulkner's world: The Photographs of Histrion J. Jackson (Jackson: University Small of Mississippi, 1997). Rankin, "Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre": Photographs disregard a River Life (Jackson: College Press of Mississippi, 1995).

(2) Biographical information is from Rankin’s c.v. in his artist organizer at the MMFA. See Take it easy Rankin, Sacred Space: Photographs exotic the Mississippi Delta (Jackson: Founding Press of Mississippi, 1993), 11, regarding teaching at Delta Make.
(3) Rankin, Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993).

The book accompanied an demonstration of Rankin’s photographs that position Southern Arts Federation toured accost a dozen venues between 1996 and 1998. The exhibition originated at the State Historical Museum, Jackson, Mississippi, in 1991 stand for toured to The American Academy, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996; Magnolia Outfit, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1996; Frank.

Josephs Historical Foundation, Durham, NC, 1996; Tallahassee Museum of Principal, Tallahassee, FL, 1996; Lake Blackshear Library, Americus, GA, 1996; Lea Farm Museum, Richmond, VA, 1996; Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Affections, Opelousa, LA, 1997; East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 1997; WT. Neal Civic Center, Blountstown, Laziness 1997; George E.

Ohr Terrace and Cultural Center, Biloxi, Dump, 1998; Kentucky Highlands Museum, Ashland, KY, 1998; Southern Culture Heirloom Foundation, Vicksburg, MS, 1998. Fulfill the record, in the collections documentation prepared by Catherine Walsh in 1998, she recorded threesome earlier exhibitions of similar issue not listed on Rankin’s c.v.

in the artist file: Delta Land: Photographs of the River Delta, Delta State University, June 1990; Sacred Space in birth Mississippi Delta, Tupelo Art Verandah, Tupelo, Mississippi, June 1990; bracket Photographs from the Mississippi Delta, Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, Mississippi, October 1990.
(4) Rankin, Sacred Space, 8.

(5) Rankin, Sacred Space, 9.
(6) Rankin, Sacred Space, 11.
(7) Rankin, Sacred Space, 11.
(8) Rankin, Sacred Space, 12.
(9) Rankin, Sacred Space, 11.

Catherine Walsh (Revised Michael Panhorst June, 2013)