Joseph Labate & Laura LaFave
Joseph Labate is an Emeritus Professor of Art in the School of Art at the University of Arizona. He was the Chair of Photography from 1996 until 2014. Labate has a B.S. in engineering from Clarkson University, a B.F.A. in photography from Massachusetts College of Art and an M.F.A. in photography from the University of Arizona. He makes his work in his studio in the Steinfeld Warehouse in Tucson. Labate is a recipient of a Visual Arts Fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, an Artist’s Grant from the Contemporary Forum of the Phoenix Art Museum and an Artist’s Grant from Polaroid of Tokyo, Japan. He has exhibited and taught photography nationally and internationally. His work is in many private and public collections including the Art Institute of Colorado, the Center for Creative Photography, the City of Phoenix, The Museum of Texas Tech University, the Snell-Wilmer Collection, the Streitch Lang Collection, the Tucson Museum of Art, the University of Arizona, the Weeks Gallery and Roussenski Lom National Park in Bulgaria.
Laura LaFave was born in Washington, D.C. She has a B.A. in psychology from the College of William and Mary, a B.F.A. in painting and drawing from Arizona State University and an M.F.A. in painting and drawing from the University of Arizona. Laura has exhibited regionally and nationally. Her work ranges from small, intimate drawings to large wall-sized mixed media paintings. Laura has worked in education teaching to a wide range of students, young children to university art majors. She worked in administration as a former dean. Before dean, Laura was counselor and principal. Laura also was on the Arizona Commission on the Arts for eight years. Laura’s work is in the collection of the University of Arizona and Lewis and Roca law firm as well as many private collections.
Asylum, from Under One Roof, 2016, Pigment ink, graphite, gesso on cotton rag paper, 8.5” x 11”
Disquiet, from Under One Roof, 2011, Pigment ink, graphite, gesso on cotton rag paper, 8.5” x 11”
Artist Statement
Under One Roof is a collaboration of photographs by Joseph Labate and drawings by Laura LaFave. Married and living together, in addition to making our own individual works, we work together on collaborative pieces. As we make our own individual works, we are continuously sharing and critiquing them with each other. This leads us to the ideas for collaboration.
Our collaborative work begins with Joseph’s photographs intended for collaborative pieces. We select some of these photographs and Joseph prints them, each on a separate section sheet of cotton rag paper. Laura then applies gesso to the blank section of the paper and draws with graphite.
Joseph Labate, Photography
I make photographs both by wandering out in the world and by setting things up to be photographed in my studio. I work with a broadly shaped umbrella of ideas but in the act of the picture-making itself, there is little or no thinking. I rely on the role of my subconscious. Inside there, there is a mix. Of clarity and confusion. Insight and neurosis. Joy and sadness. Happiness and despair. More questions than answers, the photographs offer a glimpse into my life, both directly through their subject matter and metaphorically through their style. For the collaborative work with Laura, I make photographs that I think Laura will be attracted to.
Laura LaFave, Drawing
I begin my part of the collaborative work with reflection and contemplation. Thoughts, sensibilities, emotions and sentiments evolve. I succumb to these, though only momentarily. I look beyond and outside the photograph. My awareness is heightened. I assimilate and integrate these sentiments. I pause, strive to bypass the thinking, evaluative mind. There is no judgment. It is the essence of the photograph now that is within me. It also envelops me. I begin drawing on the foundation of the assimilation, not on the visual appearance of the photograph. Dichotomies are abundant; transient and immutable, still and chaotic, melancholic yet heartening. My work embraces humility, humanity, compassion and all they encompass. It is often what we are least aware of that seems most obvious to others.
At Tusen Takk
In residence, Joe and Laura generated work in both their collaborative and own individual practices. They continued to make work as they have done in the past but also invented new ways to work, constructing new processes and new forms of the work. Exploration and experimentation were an integral part of the residency experience. Most appealing to them at Tusen Takk were the quiet and solitude, Lake Michigan and its surrounding landscape as subject matter and inspiration for art-making, and Tusen Takk’s exceptional studios.
Check out the full portfolio of work created by Joe and Laura while in residence.
"Under One Roof at Tusen Takk #1926," 2022. Pigment Ink, Graphite on Cotton Rag Paper, 8.5" x 11"
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