This article was originally published in the November 2017 Trenton Downtowner.
‘Duet” is not only the name of a new Artworks Trenton exhibition, it is an opportunity to take a look at the spirit of creating art in the capital city — something the Saturday, November 4, Art All Day openings of galleries, performance spaces, and artists’ studios are emphasizing.
A quick visit to “Duets” two artists — C.a. Shofed and Kathleen Hurley Liao — tells the story.
“It’s kind of industrial meets nature, or urban meets nature,” says Shofed, 53, about his photography.
He’s sitting in front of a computer in his workspace on the second floor of his Jackson Street home in the Mill Hill section of Trenton. “When I started out it tended to be urban areas or buildings, and nature was taking it over. Now I think it has become taking more ordinary objects that people don’t think of as beautiful and showing making them beautiful.”
His intent is enhanced by an exaggerated sense of lighting that surprises and engages. “I shoot on Vibrant, which makes the images very colorful and beautiful.”
Vibrant is a setting on his Sony A77 camera. He says he learned through the use of another Sony camera and decided to make it part of his approach. “It just seemed to appeal to me,” he says.
Part of that appeal is its connection to something he experienced when he was a boy: Technicolor films. “I am inspired by the richness of color, Technicolor movies, and I’m trying to do the same thing,” he says. “I think of the film ‘Brigadoon.’ I love that film. It’s so colorful. It’s almost like a cartoon. If I could duplicate that in my photos — I’d like that.”
His approach was also informed by a trip to Vancouver, Canada, seven years ago with his wife of nearly a decade, Caroline Wylie, a research director at Educational Testing Service in Lawrence. “Two popular photographers were printing their black-and-white photos on metal,” he says. “I had never seen that before and was struck by how the blacks were so black on the metal. I wondered what it would look like in color, and it looks great. So I print on metal. It adds brightness and vibrancy to the prints. It’s almost an aluminum canvas.”
Shofed’s work has attracted attention and has been shown in group exhibitions at the Trenton City Museum, 3rd Street Art Gallery Philadelphia, D&R Greenway Land Trust in Princeton, Woodstock Artist Association Museum, and others, including the 2017 Transformation Exhibition organized in conjunction with Rider University and Westminster Choir College. He has also presented solo shows at Trenton Social, Mercer County Library, and Pennington Ewing Athletic Club.
In addition to selling photographs and photography services, Shofed consults with groups and artists and helps them with web page-related services. He says he “silos” his activities — using his full name, Craig Shofed, for consulting and C.a. Shofed for his artistic work — with the small “a” coming from a Facebook glitch that prevented using a capital “A” but gave him an alluring creative name. Then there is Amphora Art, his web shop. That name is based on a two-handed jug and reflected a business he started with a partner who is no longer connected. But he keeps the name for personal reasons.
Shofed’s web work grew from 26 years in information technology. It began with a summer job installing computers and was curtailed by an unexpected illness.
“I had my first kidney transplant on one-eleven-eleven,” he says, spelling out the date. Doctors, he says, are unsure of exactly what caused the illness. But he is sure that he wasn’t able to go back to work because of possible infections. So he turned his attention to fine art photography.
“Although my professional life has focused on technology, I maintained an interest in photography, always carrying my camera with me, taking photographs whenever the opportunity presented itself or whenever a particular scene or object inspired me,” he writes in his bio.
In his Trenton studio he is more direct about his experience. “I fell in love with photography while with taking classes at Mercer County Community College.”
That love moved him to explore beauty in the everyday, develop enough work for a solo show, have an exhibition, and begin a new career six years ago.
He says one of the elements that helped him advance was being in Trenton, an unexpected move.
Although he was born at Fort Dix to military parents and later spent time in Germany, Shofed mainly grew up in Hopewell, where his mother, well-known jazz singer Wenonah Brooks, had grown up and still lives. His sister is another well known singer, Danielia Cotton.
Shofed’s future wife lived in Pennington and had become interested in the city by attending Passage Theater productions. She decided to purchase a home down the street from the theater. Meanwhile another of Shofed’s sisters attended the Blawenburg Church, where Wiley also attended, and introduced her brother to her future sister-in-law.
About moving to Trenton, Shofed says, “It influenced me to become an artist. Trenton artists are supportive of one another. They watch your back. I can’t imagine how much time it would take (to establish oneself) in another town.”
Noting that he was frustrated in finding an exhibition space in Hopewell, he decided to take the Trenton do-it-yourself attitude and find his own exhibition space. He developed a relationship with the Hopewell Valley Vineyards, where over the past five years he has been curating an annual show, “Common Threads,” which binds two of his interests: artists from Trenton and women artists.
It was during one of the Common Threads exhibitions that artist Liao approached him and asked how she may participate.
About 20 miles away from Shofed’s home in another studio, Princeton Junction resident Liao says her abstract paintings “go off in their own directions. But there are elements in common, movement, color, and a direct honesty.”
She says she uses automatism, an artistic approach based on the theories of Freud’s unconscious and used by surrealist artists to create dreamlike scenes designed to help viewers experience a more primary sense of being.
And while she has over the past several years exhibited at West Windsor Arts Council, Artworks, Trenton Social, Ellarslie, Blawenburg Cafe, and other venues, Liao initially studied anthropology at Barnard College of Columbia University, where she also took art history and art classes there.
“Art took over quite later,” says Liao. “I took a break from art work for 25 years. I got married [to Frank Liao], was raising my family, and was substitute teaching. (Then) I felt restless.”
Soon she was involved with a choir and getting involved with art classes and exhibitions at the West Windsor Arts Center where she began to learn about Artworks Trenton and started to explore the city’s arts venues.
It was while she attending a Trenton Social art exhibition of work by Trenton artist Leon Rainbow, someone mentioned Trenton’s Candlelight Lounge jazz series — the Saturday afternoon sessions featuring established and highly regarded emerging jazz artists from New Jersey, New York City, and Philadelphia.
“The first time I went to the Candlelight I knew I was home. The Candlelight has become a priority. I try to do things during the week to be there,” she says. “Music is an art that does the same thing paintings do. It helps others have an understanding of humanity. And jazz tells us a lot about things — stories, emotions, introspection, reactions to society.”
After meeting Shofed at the Hopewell Valley Vineyards, she says, “We noticed a similarity (in our pieces): composition, color, and texture. I think he liked the movement in my work. Then we started to find we had a background in common — even a mutual friend whom I went to school with and he knew from his church — so we started putting pieces together to start a cohesive show.”
Shofed and Liao say their process is simple and collaborative. They meet at Liao’s studio where they look at their art together. Hers is on the wall. His is on a computer. “One of her pieces may catch my eye, and I’ll bring up a photo of something I feel looks or feels that same,” says Shofed.
While there is something unpredictable in the process, and a new work may prove not to fit, Liao says the “process has been smooth and things seem to fall together quite naturally.”
She says the reason is “Craig and I seem to speak the same language through different media. What surprises me the most is that the connection of our work continues, even though our individual approach to creating has evolved over time.”
While the two share some surface realities — same age, central New Jersey roots, living abroad, mixed marriages — the two point to something less tangible that threads them together. “I think the fact that we both became serious about art late in life is the most important commonality between us,” says Shofed. “I think we were both always surrounded by art in some way in our lives. It took a very long time and Trenton to finally make us become serious about our art” — and the creation of an exhibition reflective of Trenton’s celebration of art.
Duet, Artworks Trenton, 19 Everett Alley. Reception Saturday, November 4, 5 to 8 p.m. On view through Friday, December 1, Tuesday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free. 609-394-9436 or to artworkstrenton.org.
For more information on C.a. Shofed, go to amphorartworks.com.
For more information on Kathleen Hurley Liao, visit katliao.com.
Trenton-based artist C.a. Shofed at work in his Jackson Street home.,
