In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 1988 film, Bull Durham, which thrust the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team into notoriety, Sam Stephenson directed a project bringing together artists and writers to document their 2013 season. Kate Joyce spent more than 1000 hours contributing to the project, and is taking her show to Rick Wester Fine Art for a solo exhibition. Joyce uses her experience in documentary photography to methodically catalogue the game. The pictures are selected from a collection of more than ninety thousand photographs and are methodically placed into grids. The photos capture the game as it unfolds along with the surrounding environment, giving appreciation to the sport itself, the personalities of players and the ritualistic culture of baseball. Photos dramatically document scuffs left behind by baseballs on outfield walls, lawn darts carefully folded out of gum wrappers and tossed by bullpen pitchers and the graceful yet calculated swing of a bat.
The exhibition runs through August 1.
Text by Ashley Minyard.
Photographs by Polina Neshpor.