I am so pleased to introduce my latest foray in publishing… Thereafter is a new book of photographs by artist Dale Schreiner published by my imprint, Vela Noche.

This is the first time I’ve published someone else’s work so I feel the process is worthy of some explanation. I met Dale in early 2009. He was attending the critique group I led at Newspace Center for Photography here in Portland. In 2010 I taught an intensive portfolio building workshop. The class had three students which meant there was time in each session to deeply delve into what they had made and discuss where to go next with the work. The goal of the workshop, which lasted over 4 months, was to complete a body of work between fifteen and twenty images. Dale was one of my students in the class and up until the class, all I had seen from him were singular images.

It wasn’t until the end of the workshop that he started to bring in images that would begin to have focus. He began photographing a local park as frequently as he could, and although unsure about what the draw was to it, he persisted and slowly, a series emerged. We didn’t quite know what to make of it at first. There were classical landscape images but also ones that suggested a hard beauty—images that subtly referenced crime scenes.

When he fully committed to this series, the workshop ended and because it had taken him a while to find something worthy of a series, we continued to meet about the work. I wanted him to finish it, he was on to something, although we both still weren’t sure what yet. By then, I had known Dale for a couple of years and had the luxury of knowing what was happening in his personal life. During the months in which he made these images, he had suffered a tragic loss. His father had been shot to death in the middle of the night in his home. There weren’t many details to be had, acceptance was the only option. There was an ambiguity to the crime that haunted him. I started to see that come through in the images—references to crime scenes, hardscapes within the natural, and general uncertainty.

I’m not sure Dale saw these references at first, or if he even wanted to see them. He didn’t talk about what happened to his father very much. It was my belief, that instead, he spoke of it through the images. We started to feel this project could come together as a book, a short tale of loss and forced acceptance. After about eight months of photographing and meeting, we started to pair images together. Everything started to make sense. Where individual images presented a singular perspective of what happened, the pairs presented the full story. With some spreads, we purposely paired one hardscape image with a softer one; with others, we instinctually matched images that felt like partners to communicate ambiguity, loss, and evidence.

I had never followed the development of a series like this in someone else’s work. Of course I knew what it was to build one, but what I didn’t have in trying to guide Dale, was the context of the images taken. I didn’t know what he had left out of the frame, what it was like to walk through these areas, or his perspective on what were the strongest images, which were the weakest and which he had an emotional connection to. I could merely see them multiply from an outsider’s view and hope that my eyes would accurately lead him to a place that made sense, both conceptually and visually.

At this point, we still hadn’t talked about how this book would be published. We agreed it should be a handmade book. The thought of creating new life from our own hands (in the form of a book) from death, felt like the right and only path here. I didn’t know, moving forward, that I would be the one to publish the book. I had been publishing my own books for a few years, and I was in the process of building a website for my imprint, Vela Noche. But at that time, I hadn’t planned on publishing the work of others—it was simply to be a site to sell my own books. But, as this project grew stronger and stronger, and as I became as equally embedded in it as he was, I felt compelled to move forward as both editor and publisher.

Here are images of the spreads:

We started to work out the details, from sizing of both of the book itself as well as the images on the pages, along with quantity for the edition, image tone, book cloth, end sheets, and the ultimate struggle, the title. We eventually, painfully, concluded that Thereafter was the best title. It would allude to the conclusion of one’s life and Dale’s ongoing struggle to cope with the aftermath of the events. The design started to take shape. We settled on book cloth that had a distinct texture resembling tree bark and chose to vertically align the grooves to make the reference more obvious. And once all of these decisions were made, I got to printing the edition of 20. We went together to meet with Sandy Tilcock (lone goose press), the binder I worked with on my last book, to decide the final binding method, solve out how the title would be embedded into the textured cover, and other final details.

Here are images of the completed book:

We received the first copy of the final book on Dale’s birthday last month. I know it was important to him, to see it, hold it, and realize this achievement on the marker of a passing decade. Maybe it will help him resolve this ugly chapter in his life, maybe it will redeem a part of this difficult year, maybe it will simply validate that he can build a cohesive series of images. Whatever the result, it is a huge accomplishment for me. In one act, handing over the first copy of his first book, I experienced a level of pride and satisfaction I’d never had before, as an educator, fellow artist, and now, publisher.

I don’t know if I will publish other artists’ work. Maybe this was a one-time deal. For now, I will simply make introductions to both Thereafter and Vela Noche, and thank you all, as always, for your continued support.

To visit Vela Noche, or to purchase Dale’s book, please go to www.velanoche.com.