The Real Rivermen

Art plays many roles for many people in a variety of contexts. This is not news to anyone, but it is one of the more vivid impressions that lingers in one's mind after viewing Public Policy Research Center's Photography Project Exhibition "Mississippi Tows: Mississippi pilots and their crews," which is on display in the third floor, south hall of the Social Sciences Building through the end of August.

The photo exhibit is the last in the year-long "Point-Of-View" community photography project, in which members of various communities or groups used amateur photography to document their own lives and environs. There was an opening reception for this exhibit on June 23, which included a gallery talk by Photography Project director Mel Watkin.

The initial shock of the photos in "Mississippi Tows: Mississippi pilots and their crews" is their simplicity and their naturalism. It is certainly a stereotype, but one becomes accustomed to expecting fairly abstract material when attending a University campus photo exhibit. This is certainly not the case with "Mississippi Tows," a reflective, elemental spread of photographs. They speak to the Mississippi that has been known by Americans for generations; a river that has provided many with (and taken from many) their livelihoods.

As a visceral experience, the exhibit can be divided into photos with people in them and those without. The human-free shots are stark and industrial and remind us that nowadays the river, no matter how unimaginably vast, can rarely be glimpsed without the presence of engineering. Locks rusted into layered color levels, time-worn bridges and purposeful barges move and are still along the river. It makes little difference whether or not it is high noon and blue-skied, the overwhelming metallic and dirty-watered tone of the photos makes the scenes seem overcast, majestic at best and joyless at worst.

Then there are the people: faces and bodies that we recognize, an almost a startling thing in and of itself, in poses that seem entirely unforced without detracting from the art of the photo. Even a photo that seems simple at first look, like "Mike Radcliffe, Pilot Trainee, on the Mary Scheel, AEP River Operations," by Gene Matthews, reveals depths upon closer inspection. The symmetry of the workspace, the open-yet-closed nature of the three large windows, the comparison of the photo to another which shows just the barge without pilot or cabin; all of these elements take the entirely natural photo beyond its initially apparent potential.

A pamphlet offered at the exhibit offers these words from Mel Watkin, the Director or the PPRC Photography Project, "Prior to this Project, I could not understand the lure of the Mississippi River…The photographs for this Project made me 'see' the true nature of the river…a powerful, if unpredictable thoroughfare for commerce and a tight knit community of hardworking river boat crews."

The community is seen in the exhibits' briefly triumphant moments, such as "The Carol Ann Parsonage's Cook Marty Smith," photographed by Gene Massengill, which seems to have accomplished something nearly magical in catching Smith at a sublime moment looking exactly as you would hope a Mississippi ship's cook would. For a moment, it can be understood why so many people call the river home.

The "Mississippi Tows: Mississippi pilots and their crews" P.O.V. photo exhibit is being shown at two locations. The first is in its current run on the third floor of the Social Sciences building here at UM-St. Louis, from June 23 thru August 30. The second location is the Cape Girardeau Public Library, where the exhibit is running from June 23 thru August 1. The campus exhibit is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.