98-year-old's vibrant photography and personality featured in new DSCC exhibit; reception Monday evening

Burt Sharp and Patti Lechman are busy hanging a new exhibit in the Dyersburg State Community College Learning Resource Center. These vibrant color photographs are the latest work of 98-year-old Mahaffey White of Memphis, an artist who has expressed herself through a variety of media throughout her lifetime. White will attend a reception kicking off the exhibition from 4:30 p.m. until 6 p.m., on Monday, Sept. 14, in the LRC.

An artist who has reinvented herself in many media, White recently took on digital color photography as a method to express herself.

Her vibrant photographs are a departure from the contrast of the black and white images created in the darkroom by White in the last decade. But the talent and boldness of her artistic eye is consistent through both forms of photography, as well as the drawings, paintings, jewelry, dress designs and pottery she has created throughout her lifetime.

Memphis artist Mahaffey White will meet local residents at a reception on Monday evening to celebrate the premiere of a new exhibit of her digital color photography in the DSCC LRC. The energetic 98-year-old has not stopped reinventing herself as an artist since the Great Depression. The reception will take place from 4:30-6 p.m., on Monday, Sept. 14, at the LRC on Dyersburg State Community College's Dyersburg Campus. The exhibit is already on display. [Click to enlarge]

This Monday evening, area residents will have the opportunity to view the color and confidence of the artist, called one of Memphis's best-kept secrets, in the Learning Resource Center on Dyersburg State Community College's Dyersburg campus.

"All media present their own kinds of challenges, possibilities and limitations," said White in an artist's statement written for the new exhibit. "The camera, available to everyone, makes us all 'picture takers.'... The artist uses the camera differently, as a tool - like a brush, a chisel, a torch or a metal plate - a tool that has its own limitations and creative possibilities. This is the way I perceive and use the camera."

A walk through the exhibit has the audience leaning closer in an effort to catch the details of White's carefully constructed compositions. From a distance, the bold color, shapes and structure of the work resemble watercolors or classic paintings. A closer look reveals the details carefully placed within - the artist's self-portrait by shadow or snapshot. The corner of a classic Cezanne print.

"With black and white photography I approached it as a printmaker, as if cutting a linoleum or wood block, or etching a copper plate," said White, who did her own darkroom work until about five years ago, when standing for long periods of time began to take a toll on her. "Photography is itself a printmaking medium. Using color photography, I think quite differently. I think as a painter, especially so with the flower studies shown in this exhibition."

By switching mediums, White is able to continue producing art from her home. As her creative spirit embraces a new form of expression, her artist's eye never ceases to construct interesting and imaginative compositions.

"When setting up the study to be photographed, I consider the brilliance and beauty of color, as well as the lines and shapes as they interact within the composition," continued White in her statement. "I often add a bit or a snippet of another color print, as in 'Pardon Cezanne'. It was a pleasure to get this show together since setting up and photographing these studies is my present way of producing art."

White credits her good friend, former colleague and photography teacher Patti Lechman for helping her select the work for the exhibit. Lechman taught alongside White during her tenure as an art instructor at Shelby State. After White's retirement in 1981, she returned to the school as a student, enrolling first in Lechman's pottery classes and then her beginning photography courses.

"She really took to (photography)," said Lechman as she and her husband, Burt Sharp, took the time to arrange White's photographs in the LRC last week. "She did her own darkroom work until about five years ago. What she's been doing in this body of work with the digital camera for the past five or six years has been her way of working. Most of the photos are taken at her home. She is an artist. This is just one of her media."

"There is an amazing energy this woman has," said Sharp. "She is the most amazing lady."

White is expected to attend a reception in the DSCC LRC from 4:30 p.m. until 6 p.m., on Monday, Sept. 14. The exhibit is already on display.