Fishing Boats to Fine Art: Corey Arnold's Graveyard Show

Tim and Sockeye, 2010, by Corey ArnoldAs anyone who's been following my updates here probably knows, for the past five years I've spent my summers in Bristol Bay, Alaska, dividing my time between working the commercial salmon fishing season and researching a book about the highly-charged fight over the proposed Pebble Mine. My partner in crime in these endeavors is Corey Arnold, an incredibly talented and dogged fisherman, and an even more talented photographer. Somehow, during the rare respites from our long hours of hauling nets, Corey has found time over the years to get his camera out and document, in all its glory and weirdness, our Alaskan summer community at a defunct salmon cannery called Graveyard Point. It is a squatters' encampment of people drawn from all over the country and all sorts of backgrounds, brought together by the greatest salmon run on earth. It is a place of remarkable beauty mixed with remarable harshness, a community built on work and history and heart. And though it's a place that few outsiders will every truly understand, Corey's photos are certainly the next best thing to being there.

Which is why I'm so happy to announce that a remarkable slice of Corey's Graveyard-focused work will be on display in Portland starting tomorrow, with the opening of his Graveyard Point solo show at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art. Very proud of Corey and the work he's done, and beyond flattered to be included in the show, along with so many of our fishermen friends. Portlanders, go see it. The rest of you, click over to the show's page at the Hartman Fine Art site to check out the rest of the images. I think you'll find--ahem--that the shot above is by far the best one.