Blue Sky Ahead: Founders
Featuring photography by Ann Hughes, Christopher Rauschenberg,
Craig Hickman, Robert Di Franco, and Terry Toedtemeier

October 3–November 3, 2019
First Thursday opening reception: October 3, 6:00–9:00 PM

Panel discussion moderated by Lois Leveen with
Christopher Rauschenberg, Craig Hickman,
Prudence Roberts, and Robert Di Franco:  Saturday, October 5, 1:00 PM

Blue Sky turns 44 years old in October! To celebrate this considerable legacy, Blue Sky is launching Blue Sky Ahead, a two-part exhibition series.

In October, Blue Sky will dedicate both galleries to the current and past photographic work by founders Ann Hughes, Christopher Rauschenberg, Craig Hickman, Robert Di Franco, and Terry Toedtemeier. Please join us
in November for the second half of the series—Blue Sky Ahead: Futures—which will highlight the future of photography in Oregon as seen through the eyes of six emerging photographers chosen by Blue Sky’s founders: Ebenezer Galluzzo, Emma Kisiel, Jamila Clarke, Nolan Streitberger, Sam Wrigglesworth, and Troi Anderson.

Ann Hughes was born in 1948 in St. Maries, Idaho, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where she graduated from Portland State University with a Bachelor of Science degree. A photographer and graphic designer, Hughes co-founded Blue Sky Gallery in 1975, where she also exhibited numerous times and regularly designed the legendary exhibitions posters during the early years of the gallery. Her photography can be found in private collections and in the Portland Art Museum’s photography collection.

Christopher Rauschenberg received his BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His work has been exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Chicago Cultural Center, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, among many other major institutions. An exceptionally active leader in the Northwest arts community, he taught at Marylhurst University in Lake Oswego, Oregon for many years and co-founded Nine Gallery and the photography nonprofit Photolucida in Portland, Oregon, in addition to co-founding Blue Sky Gallery in 1975.

Craig Hickman grew up in the Northwest, where he became friends with fellow Blue Sky cofounders in high school and beyond. Hickman earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Portland State University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington, Seattle. He taught photography at The Evergreen State College and later taught art courses focused on the computer as an art medium at the University of Oregon, where he is now Professor Emeritus after 31 years. He is also the creator of Kid Pix, a computer drawing program for children, which he initially developed for his son, Ben.

Robert Di Franco has been a working artist since 1973. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis. In 1975 he co-founded Blue Sky Gallery. Di Franco has taught photography at Cincinnati Art Academy, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Marylhurst University, and The Evergreen State College. His work has been exhibited at numerous venues nationally and internationally and it is housed in the collections of the French National Archives, The Portland Art Museum, The Rainier Bank Photography Collection, Oregon State Capitol Collection, the Seattle Arts Commission, Seattle Art in Public Places Program, The Washington State Arts Commission, the Portland Metropolitan Arts Commission, and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. In 2015 his photographs were exhibited at the Portland Art Museum in the Blue Sky, The Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts at 40 retrospective exhibition.

Lifelong Oregonian Terry Toedtemeier (1947–2008) was a dedicated photographer, photography teacher, and the Portland Art Museum’s first curator of photography. A self-taught photographer who studied geology in college, Toedtemeier began experimenting with the medium during the 1970s, focusing on his friends and colleagues as subjects. By the 1980s he attracted wider critical attention through his landscape images, which were influenced by his deep understanding of both the photography traditions of the American West and the land’s underlying geology. He traveled throughout Oregon, paying particularly close attention to the Columbia River Gorge, the coastline, and the arid southeast, enthralled by the diversity of terrain contained within the state’s borders. Digital and color photographs created shortly before the end of his life demonstrate Toedtemeier’s ever-present willingness to experiment and see anew through the camera’s lens.