Clickers & Flickers Photography Network: Peggy Fontenot - Photojournalism: Native Americans, Veterans, and Social Issues

PHOTOJOURNALISM: NATIVE AMERICANS, VETERANS, AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Presented By: PEGGY FONTENOT * Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 * Time: 6:30 - 10 p.m. * Location: The Castaway, 1250 Harvard Road, Burbank, CA 91501 MAP * Reservations: (626) 794-7447 (Required at least 5 days prior to the event)
PEGGY FONTENOT, award-winning Photographer of American Indian heritage, and Co-Founder of America’s Veterans, has been exhibiting her Fine Art Photography nationally since 1991. She continues to shoot exclusively with B&W film and processes her own work in her wet darkroom, using a split filter-technique. She has received numerous awards, which include the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), the Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis, IN), and Millard Sheets Gallery (Pomona, CA). In October 2008, she was presented with the 4th Annual Black and White Spider Awards Nominee in the category of Photojournalism. Fontenot is currently photographing contemporary Native Americans to show that despite attempts of Assimilation by the American government, Indigenous people continue to thrive. This series is combined with Tipis of the Plains Tribes, an exhibit of Sepia and Selenium toned Gelatin Silver images depicting American Indian home life, both past and present. Fontenot’s Debriefing exhibit explores veterans and their personal experience of reentry into civilian life. This show was hosted by the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum (Chicago, IL, May 2008-Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2008.) The Museum of History and Art (Ontario, CA) will host the exhibit December 2008-February, 2009. Fontenot’s exhibit Merging Cultures is a body of work, which explores Black Indians. In 2011, the Eiteljorg Museum will host an exhibit, Intersecting Lives of African and Native Americans, in conjunction with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s banner exhibit, Indivisible, with both exhibits featuring images from Merging Cultures. Fontenot’s activism in social issues led her to produce Secrets Behind the Wall: An American Indian Vietnam Veteran’s Private Battlefield at Home. Partnering with the Library of Congress’ Veteran History Project, Fontenot is currently photographing and interviewing veterans from across the United States for an upcoming multi-media traveling exhibit The Living Wall© which honors all veterans, while bringing awareness to who our veterans are and in what conditions they exist today. Faces of Pride: America’s Veterans, is an introductory exhibit to The Living Wall© which is currently touring. In addition to her fine art and editorial photography, Fontenot has a strong background in product and commercial photography. Her clients include The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) (Los Angeles, CA); Sweet Medicine Enterprises (Santa Fe, NM); Bosnia Relief Fund (Los Angeles, CA); Slick Racing (Hawaii); Just Like Home Cafè (Marina del Rey, CA); and Dick Clark Racing (Gardnerville, NV), for which she shot two world land-speed records. Fontenot teaches regularly at The San Joaquin River Intertribal Heritage Education Corporation in Auberry, CA and Satwiwa Native American Cultural Center in Thousand Oaks. She currently mentors young Native photographers.
RESERVATIONS AND PAYMENT REQUIRED IN ADVANCE C&F members: $49 at least (5) days in advance. $55 less than 5 days prior to the event. Non members: $59 at least (5) days in advance. $65 at the door, only if space is available.