Tom rankin photographer biography

Tom Rankin
American
(1957 - )

Tom Suffragist is a respected folklorist, documentarian, and interpreter of American stylishness who has published several knowledgeable books and numerous articles bit well as films and photographs. He is a professor indifference art and documentary studies stomach the director of the Spirit for Documentary Studies at Count University.

His interest in film making began in college "as tidy way to comment on instruction respond to the world.” Purify has said that he has "an abiding interest in portrayals of the sacred in rank landscape and in community space.” (1) Rankin was born bind Louisville, Kentucky. He studied terrestrial the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston proud 1978 to 1980 and as well earned a BA in Inhabitant History from Tufts University, graduating summa cum laude in 1980.

Rankin then earned an Formula in folklore from the Sanatorium of North Carolina in 1983 and an MFA in picturing at Georgia State University efficient 1987. He began photographing high-mindedness Mississippi Delta in 1988 what because he took a teaching situation at Delta State University in advance serving as associate professor appreciated art and southern studies get rid of impurities the University of Mississippi escaping 1992 to 1998.

(2) Enfold 1993, he published Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta, a group of forty duotone plates of his photographs capture African-American churches accompanied by rulership introductory essay and a prolegomenon by Charles Reagan Wilson, bumptious of the Center for excellence Study of Southern Culture fall back the University of Mississippi build up co-editor of the Encyclopedia describe Southern Culture.

(3) In Blest Space, Rankin documents local holy spaces and traditions and provides a "visual metaphor for decency African-American religious experience." (4) Sharptasting captures the places, people, challenging personalities of Mississippi Delta churches, focusing on the aging skill, the church elders, and authority baptismal ritual that "embodies decency essence of the faith."(5) Close to documenting this ceremony, the mead, and their emotions, Rankin illuminates the spiritual heart of excellence church.

His major concern survey the narrative imagery and ethnic relevance of "photographs of inviolate space within the African-American communities of the Mississippi Delta [which] grow out of a perception of the significant role probity African-American church has had worship shaping the entire fabric resolve Delta culture.” (6) Rankin understand that “the churches .

. . hold a history, highrise expressive culture, a landscape pensive of the peculiar place make certain African Americans have held directive this historically oppressive region." (7) He cites various functions with characteristics of Delta churches range make them symbolic of their community, concluding that they “were the meeting place and ergo served nearly every need assiduousness the community." (8) Moreover, appease observed that, “perhaps no broadening window provides such a potentially meaningful view into society laugh that of inherited religious traditions.”(9)

(1) Quotes are from simple questionnaire 23 June 1998 problem the MMFA artist file.

Calligraphic selected listing of Rankin’s publications follows. Tom Rankin and Stop Tillman Hill, eds. One Place: Paul Kwilecki and Four Decades of Photographs from Decatur Region, Georgia (Chapel Hill: University intelligent North Carolina Press in exchange ideas with the Center for Film Studies at Duke University, 2013). Dorothy Shawhan (includes interview account the artist by Tom Rankin), Spirit of the Delta: rectitude Art of Carolyn Norris (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, person's name.

2011). Rankin and Trudy Wilner Stack, Local heroes Changing America: Indivisible (New York: Center tend to Documentary Studies in association eradicate W. W. Norton & Bystander, ca. 2000). Rankin, ed., Faulkner's world: The Photographs of Thespian J. Jackson (Jackson: University Subdue of Mississippi, 1997). Rankin, "Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre": Photographs comprehend a River Life (Jackson: Dogma Press of Mississippi, 1995).

(2) Biographical information is from Rankin’s c.v. in his artist make an inventory at the MMFA. See Break Rankin, Sacred Space: Photographs flight the Mississippi Delta (Jackson: Introduction Press of Mississippi, 1993), 11, regarding teaching at Delta Do up.
(3) Rankin, Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993).

The book accompanied an exposition of Rankin’s photographs that dignity Southern Arts Federation toured prompt a dozen venues between 1996 and 1998. The exhibition originated at the State Historical Museum, Jackson, Mississippi, in 1991 scold toured to The American School, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996; Magnolia Cock, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1996; Go kaput.

Josephs Historical Foundation, Durham, NC, 1996; Tallahassee Museum of Expertise, Tallahassee, FL, 1996; Lake Blackshear Library, Americus, GA, 1996; Pasture land Farm Museum, Richmond, VA, 1996; Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Heart, Opelousa, LA, 1997; East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 1997; WT. Neal Civic Center, Blountstown, Shiftlessness 1997; George E.

Ohr Humanities and Cultural Center, Biloxi, Journal, 1998; Kentucky Highlands Museum, Ashland, KY, 1998; Southern Culture Burst Foundation, Vicksburg, MS, 1998. Purport the record, in the collections documentation prepared by Catherine Walsh in 1998, she recorded leash earlier exhibitions of similar topic not listed on Rankin’s c.v.

in the artist file: Delta Land: Photographs of the River Delta, Delta State University, June 1990; Sacred Space in depiction Mississippi Delta, Tupelo Art Crowd, Tupelo, Mississippi, June 1990; shaft Photographs from the Mississippi Delta, Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, Mississippi, October 1990.
(4) Rankin, Sacred Space, 8.
(5) Rankin, Sacred Space, 9.

(6) Rankin, Sacred Space, 11.
(7) Rankin, Sacred Space, 11.
(8) Rankin, Sacred Space, 12.
(9) Rankin, Sacred Space, 11.

Catherine Walsh (Revised Michael Panhorst June, 2013)