THE NEWS

Anti-Semitic attitudes are growing in the State of Wyoming. In an effort to establish greater understanding of American Jewish culture, a grant has been awarded to Penny Wolin and her sponsor, Moby Bookmobile, to give presenations, encouraging greater understanding about Jews in America. Her lectures will be based upon her two monographs, The Jews of Wyoming: Fringe of the Diaspora and Descendants of Light: American Photographers of Jewish Ancestry. Crazy Woman Creek Press will provide 120 copies of Descendants of Light, to be distributed by the Wyoming State Library to all public and private libraries across the State. 

It was a cold and snowy night in the Big Apple, but people came out in full force to the opening to view GUEST REGISTER. People were crowded together but intent on reading the captions and seeing the photographs. The presentation of 37 matching frames with matted prints was beautiful. I have deep gratitude for this lovely crowd as well as Michael Foley and Barry Munger, who helped bring the work to New York in all of its glory. The next act for the work is go on the road as a traveling exhibition and place the entire set of prints in a forever home.

The now seminal Hollywood manifesto, GUEST REGISTER by Penny Wolin was photographed and first exhibited at ArtCenter in 1975. Fast forward to 2023 and Penny celebrates the publication of GUEST REGISTER, accompanied in the ArtCenter auditorium by collaborators, author Barry Munger and type designer Greg Lindy. What ensued was a spirited audio visual discussion of GUEST REGISTER and it’s place in the canon of the Hollywood exposé.

"I wish I had Ms. Wolin’s courage to be an artist instead of dreaming about it."

— Gent137

"The background planning and mind’s eye of the person taking the shot are what makes great photographs and great photographers. It’s the ability to “see” the shot beforehand. It’s the difference between an artist like Penny Wolin and the ‘happy snappers’."

— Micktrick

"I checked out more of this project online. It’s pretty damn good."

— LordofBenshamManor

"Hopper meets Chandler! It’s a wonderful image, and so timeless – it’d be hard to guess the decade the photo was taken!"

— fishworld

"LA-based photographer Penny Wolin’s portraits have appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair. She’s shot American Icons like Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, George Burns, and Charlton Heston. Before that, her subjects were people on the fringe, just hanging on.

In 1975, age at 21, she rented a room in a single room occupancy hotel in Hollywood called the St. Francis. She photographed — in black and white — the residents in their rooms. Each intimate picture came with pithy descriptions like “jobless and homeless with plenty of future ahead”.

Now 47 years later, Penny Wolin is presenting these photographs for the first time in a book called “GUEST REGISTER”."

For many of the residents of St. Francis, it was the myth of Hollywood that drew them to the city. Wolin says that idea is alive and well, and can still hold true. She describes Hollywood not just as a geographical location, but an existential place.

“And you can make something for yourself,” she says. “You can become a photographer, a musician, all these things that you want to be, there’s hope that you can be them. So Hollywood is built on hope.”

The resulting book is at once deeply rooted in a moment in time and universal, both Hollywood Boulevard nostalgia and — with its subjects’ bushy mustaches, smoldering More cigarettes and wide, polyester shirt lapels — a snapshot of a decade. It’s about chasing dreams and the freedom to embrace one’s true identity. And it’s a testament to the enduring lure of Los Angeles for those seeking reinvention.

— Deborah Vankin

Upon the recommendation of Lisa Sutcliffe, Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum, 2 vintage silver-gelatin black and white prints from The Jews of Wyoming: Fringe of the Diaspora have been acquired by The Layton Art Collection, as sponsored by the generosity of Ross and Mary Read. This is theLayton's first acquisition of photography since Frederick Layton opened his art gallery in 1888.

The Tubbs Firestorm hit Santa Rosa, California in the early morning on October 9, 2017.

The fire was, at the time, unprecedented in its speed, heat and destruction. I live eight miles from the fire and woke to thick smoke in the air and large pieces of ash floating down to earth, some still smoldering as it landed on my property. This was big. I grabbed my cameras, and an N95 mask to filter the smoke and headed to the Western perimeter of where the fire had been stopped by the Berkeley Fire Department. I’d never imagined such total destruction in my life. Car wheels melted into rivulets, children’s tricycles scorched into heaps of steel, 5,643 structures destroyed with 22 people dead. One building in its path was a McDonald’s restaurant. For me, it was always an icon for all that is good and bad in this land of the American Dream.

— PDW