Morning Glory

Viewers have come to expect two things from John Rankine's photographs. They'll either be epic -- or unusual.

Rankine, who lives in Eureka Springs, has done "many series involving local faces," he says.

"I was honored with the Arkansas Arts Council's Individual Fellowship award for outstanding achievement in the arts for 'A Community At Peace,' a multi-media photographic installation where I took 550 individual portraits of our local community visualizing peace," he explains.

That's epic.

He's also known for "creating images combining inanimate objects I'd arrange and photograph" -- a mannequin looking out a window, a Buddha with flowers growing where its head should be, an artistic arrangement of fruit with a doll head staring from the middle.

That's unusual.

But Rankine has combined the two sides of his art for this year's May Festival of the Arts in Eureka Springs. "On My Morning Walk" includes a series of nature shots captured with his iPhone every morning, rain or shine, for over a year -- epic, right? Forty-two of them, artistically matted and framed, are on show at Brews, Eureka's favorite coffee and craft beer gathering place. But down the street at Basin Spring Park, the photos are captured in a completely different way.

"In Basin Park I have built an installation using retro mini photo-viewers that each contain a different 'Morning Walk' photograph," he explains. "We built a metal frame that is constructed over the actual spring in Basin Park where 200 of the photo viewers dangle from wires for people to pick up and view the magnified images. A white lantern was installed in the middle of the installation so that people could view the images in the evening by holding the photo viewers to the light source."

And that's unusual. But it's not all.

"On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays during the remainder of the month, a slide show viewing 300 of the photographs is projected onto the back wall of the band shell in Basin Park," Rankine adds.

He's not surprised by the shape the exhibition has taken. But he says he is a little overwhelmed by the reaction to the photographs themselves.

"What started as a lesson in discipline and observation soon turned into a series of work because of the positive comments and 'likes' I received on Instagram and Facebook," he admits. "Soon I had a following of people who told me how much they looked forward to my morning photograph. That really became the impetus for the show. I chose the photographs to print and frame at Brews through the number of comments and 'likes' each one received.

"I had fooled around with the camera when I was in my 20s, but nothing serious," he explains. "When my now husband Bill King and Mary Pat Boian teamed up to start the Lovely County Citizen in 1999, it was, 'You are the artist, you go out and take the pictures.' I was a photojournalist for eight years. I learned photography by basically being in the field.

"I'm always surprised at people's reactions," he adds. "People have come up to me saying that 'On My Morning Walk' was their favorite series I've done. I think people respond strongly to nature; I know I do."

NAN What's Up on 05/13/2016