November 2025 :: Tintype Show :: Crystal Calabrese and Nicolai Klimaszewski :: IV Gallery :: 11.22.2025 Opening

Contemporary Tintype Portraits created in the traditional wet-plate collodion process by Crystal Amethyst Calabrese focus on farmers and farming in the Finger Lakes.

A site-specific installation of historical Tintype Portraits curated by Nicolai Klimaszewski seeks to breathe life into the characters and community that existed in America during the earliest days of photography.

A working tintype studio and demos on Sat & Sun.

3 Days Only:
November
21 @ 4-7
22 @ 11-4 (opening reception)
23 @ 1-4

IV Gallery at Cortright Electric
653 Elmira Rd. Ithaca

More information and details: eyeveearts@gmail.com

Questions: Nicolai 607 279-1126

“Farmers and Farmscapes” is an ongoing portrait series of Finger Lakes farmers and the land they steward. Through her original tintype photographs, Calabrese invites an open conversation about the realities of farming and our shared responsibility of caring for the land for future generations. Her project also highlights the importance of preserving endangered art forms through continued practice.

Crystal Calabrese is an Ithaca-area artist who uses the historic wet-plate collodion process to document contemporary small-scale agriculture and our evolving relationship to the land. Working from her mobile darkroom, she mixes her own chemistry and creates handmade, direct-positive images on metal and glass plates. The tintypes in “Farmers and Farmscapes” were made with a 120-year-old Seneca View Camera onto 5” x 7” metal plates. Her project was supported by a grant from the Arts Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.

Klimaszewski’s show is a site-specific installation of historical tintype portraits. They have been printed larger to make detail accessible and to enhance the presence of the characters depicted. “George Robinson’s America c.1870” presents a cohesive selection of portraits originally created by anonymous photographers during the years 1860-1880. The installation seeks to breathe life into the characters and community that existed in America during the early days of portrait photography.

Klimaszewski is an artist and a collector of all things photographic. He has exhibited his artwork nationally and internationally. His work has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. He has organized, curated, and juried shows in galleries and museums, including The Tarpon Springs National Arts and Crafts Show, and the Johnson Museum of Art. This show is curated from his personal collection of tintype photographs.