In Ron Jude's photographic project, 45th Parallel, the artist revisits his childhood home of McCall, Idaho, to examine how this small town has been transformed from a rural mountain community to a popular resort destination over the past generation. Situated on scenic Payette Lake in central Idaho, McCall has struggled to protect its traditional way of life from changing economic systems and environmental practices. At the source of McCall's conflict is the land and the complex issues surrounding its development - who is entitled to the land and what is its most valuable resource?
Historically, attitudes and policies regarding western land expansion have been complex and contradictory. Should the natural splendors of the land be utilized as a resource for extractive industries such as mining and timber, or should it be developed as a scenic destination for tourism? Entangled in these questions and in the subject matter of 45th Parallel are different communities, industries, and definitions of land usage.
Jude explores these perplexing issues in thirty-seven large, color photographs, which depict the area of McCall, Idaho, between 1994 and 1998. Characterized by their bold color, direct presentation, and tightly cropped compositions, Jude's photographs relate mundane, commonplace scenes found in McCall to more universal themes of shifting economies and social identity. Although the photographs in 45th Parallel appear to be impartial, factual documents, they are more akin to social landscape photography's premeditated imagery and personal narrative. In 45th Parallel, Jude's carefully arranged images function collectively as a body of work allowing the viewer to build a cumulative understanding of the changes facing McCall.
McCall's origins as a community can be attributed to two different industries. Beginning at the turn of the century, and for nearly eighty years afterward, lumber was produced at lakeside sawmills. During this same period, McCall became a mecca for local tourism, particularly for residents of the Boise Valley, who leased state-owned land along the Payette lakeshore for vacation homes. Since the closing of the last lakeside sawmill in 1977, McCall has struggled to shift from a resource-based lumber economy to one dependent on corporate-owned resorts and tourism. Attracted to McCall in the late 1980s, land developers began revitalizing the small community with city improvements and resort developments. Subsequently, McCall has experienced rapid economic growth, with projections of the town's population estimated to nearly triple over the next ten years. As a result of increased expansion and tourism, McCall has grown into Idaho's third largest resort community, following Sun Valley and Coeur d'Alene.
Focusing on questions of changing economics and cultural identity, a debate has ensued in McCall among different generations of its inhabitants. Some believe the unique culture and tradition of the mountain town is in danger of being engulfed and commodified by recent economic progress, while others are convinced that McCall's transformation to an exclusive resort community is essential for its survival. Taken as a theme by Ron Jude, 45th Parallel signifies not only McCall's latitudinal location, halfway between the equator and North Pole, but also serves as a metaphor for a critical juncture in the town's history.
In 45th Parallel, Jude articulates the idea that people's livelihood and social identity are interconnected with the land by intentionally creating juxtapositions in the compositions of many of the photographs. The artist places man-made constructions, such as a building or campfire, in the immediate foreground of the photograph and juxtaposes these images with background scenes of mountains, lakes, and forests. Often, these views of the landscape are partially or completely obscured, visible only as pale reflections or glimpses through building windows.
Jude's visual strategy of overlaying the landscape with images of human habitation is evident in images such as Rock Wall, Shore Lodge, McCall, ID. Interpreted both as a physical barrier between the viewer and scenic landscape and as a man-made simulation of the natural environment, the stone wall also becomes a metaphor for tourism-based development which, like the wall, interrupts our experience of the landscape. Dividing the composition of the photograph, the rock wall further serves as a poetic metaphor for McCall's division as a community.
In architectural photographs such as Terrace Room Dining Area, Shore Lodge, McCall, ID and Mountain Cabin, Lick Creek Road, McCall, ID, Jude compares traditional, utilitarian mountain cabins with the new resort communities. The stacked logs and weathered façade of Mountain Cabin suggest McCall's identity as a lumber town and reaffirm its direct connection with its environment. In comparison, Terrace Room Dining Area represents McCall's transformation into a tourist economy. In this photograph, the viewer sees the food-strewn table and "rustic" chandelier of a resort dinning room rather than experiencing the landscape directly. Emphasizing McCall's explosive growth, 45th Parallel shows how humble structures such as Mountain Cabin axe being rapidly replaced by resort lodges, communication towers, and time-share condominiums.
Jude purposefully makes comparisons, both visually and ideologically, between McCall's traditional, resource-based economy and contemporary tourism-based development. Because many of Jude's photographs share a similar centered, straightforward, and structured composition, the viewer is able to make visual comparisons between the simple window and stacked firewood of Mountain Cabin and the patio doors and wood deck of New Home, Near McCall, ID. While Jude contrasts the terms "home" and "cabin" with ideas of permanent and seasonal residency, his photographs draw physical comparisons between past and recent resort development, signifying McCall's changing identity as a town - from a small, private working-class community catering to local tourism to a large-scale, planned development which targets the leisure-class and global market.
On another level, many of Jude's photographs address the cultural myths and symbols that have formed our understanding of Western settlement. A historical precedent for the economic expansion currently being experienced by McCall is signified by Bronze Statue of Pioneer Family in Back Yard of Land Developer's Lakeside Home, McCall, ID. The pioneers, as well as earlier generations of explorers, traders, and trappers, are part of a cycle of colonization that began with the Native Americans and resulted in one "indigenous" group of people being replaced by another. This cycle continues today as McCall's current residents are being assimilated by the new pioneers—commercial developers.
As the only human figure to appear in 45th Parallel, the man in Near Upper Payette Lake, ID serves as a symbol of McCall's traditional mountain culture. Dependent upon the land for his livelihood, the man recurs in Jude's photographs as a trapper, hunter, and sawyer. Set against the deforested landscape, the figure is easily, and perhaps mistakenly, associated with the environmental problems that face today's public and private lands. Many of the photographs in 45th Parallel, including this example, are deliberately ambiguous. Is Jude making a causal connection between the man and the broken trees scattered in the snow, or is the artist comparing the low-volume use of the land's resources, represented by the trapper/hunter/sawyer, with the more traumatic impact of corporate tourism and logging?
In 45th Parallel, it is not Jude's goal to present a literal documentary record. Nor are his photographs intended as an indictment of the old or new economy in McCall. Rather, the artist purposefully leaves the final interpretation of the project to the audience. In many ways 45lh Parallel is as much about the viewer's responses to the imagery as it is about the relationships Jude reveals between McCall's conflicting cultures.
Heather A. Ferrell, Associate Curator of Art, Boise Art Museum
Ron Jude: 45th Parallel by Heather A. Ferrell
Ron Jude
45th Parallel 1994-1998
