Architect – Investigator – Documentarian – Instigator ==
== Vintage Photo Documentarian
When standing in front of the wall of Jerry’s photography, it doesn’t take long to realize that it fits in many categories:
Automobiles House Portraits
Interiors Wallpaper
Beyond the categories you find a certain questing, a seeking out of the little details about how things age. Jerry finds that there is a certain beauty in the pieces that seem to have been forgotten, they continue to age and a certain patina of life emerges that is visible and elegant. He reminisces about the Titanic being discovered in 1986, “There was something about the Titanic, the before and after of the beauty of it all, seeing the chandelers in the midst of all that chaos that touched him.”
It is that growing beauty of the afterlife of an automobile or house the draws him in, asking him to keep coming closer to learn about the details of what is happening as the car or home take on their own life of aging in the elements.
Classic cars have always attracted Jerry and he drives one now.
Again, he goes back to his basic premise in more detail, cars show us beautiful details then sometimes they end up lost, forgotten in the woods with nature taking overs. The aging of the car, alone in nature, brings about a different kind of beauty. It is a spiritual moment for him when he encounters a new lost car and unfolds the discovery process of its current state of classic aging. He finds those cars that we might get a glimpse of from a distance and brings them home to us.
In the process of capturing the spiritual in his work, Jerry seeks out the abandoned houses and homes in his travels. Sometimes they are on the byways he rambles on, other times, in new locations, he just starts asking. His deep interest in the exploration of a property is evident in his quest and portfolio, thus the leads follow. In his images you will find, the houses and the exploration as he moves deeper into studying the details of the house, first from the larger interior, anything that catches his eye, but then like the investigator he is, cracks, crevices and anything that was left behind becomes photographically documented.
The telling of the story doesn’t end there, how will it be presented to you, for your observation, for your connection to your memories – and it might be of something of the same age or a memory of when that was fresh and young.
For example, his fascination with wallpaper often triggers a memory of that same wallpaper in a grandmother’s or aunts home. Viewing that small photograph or even card brings back past treasured times. Jerry comments, “Wallpaper, in particular, takes people to a particular point in time. Everyone has a direct response to it.”
Jerry’s desire to capture and share the spirit and beauty of what’s been left to age on its own caused him to leave his architectural career of designing MRI rooms for hospitals to take a new career path of working at the Front Room in Portland with the assurance that he could have the flexibility to take considerable time off each year to pursue his photography passions with his life and travel partner and co-adventurer, Ryan Rush.
Jerry’s work can be found at the Maine Art Collective Pop-Up at 157 Middle Street, Portland or contact him directly at Jerry Copan Jr (@jcopan81) • Instagram photos and videos.
Art in Maine 