What Lies Within
a book of photographs about a unique collector's eclectic collections
Sometimes in life the world presents you with something unexpected, like a small gift that appears fully wrapped with a bow on top. Seven years ago, I entered the collector’s world of Andrea M. Noel after a friend suggested that I might be interested in photographing Andrea's expansive collections. After approaching her about potential of examining her assortments photographically, I was presented with a list of over sixty collecting categories, ranging from kitchen utensils to bedpans and urinals. When I arrived at Andrea's beautiful, home complete with a wraparound porch festooned with wisteria, I was unprepared for the surprises that lay within. Dale Niles, photographer
The photographs she has created for What Lies Within: The Eclectic Collections of Andrea M. Noel, are not only the perfect creative cataloguing of Andrea’s well-developed sensibilities, but Niles’ images take possession of the objects in a new telling through staged tableaux and conceptual portraiture, creating her own reinterpreted collection of a collection. The work reveals a child-like wonder of photographic offerings, like a tray of Christmas cookies, each with its own delights and flavor.
Whatever the reason, collecting is, in fact, the transience of objects, objects that go on to have other lives with other people. And the ones that end up in Andrea Noel’s collections and Dale Niles’ photographs are the lucky ones – celebrated, revered, touched, and loved.
Aline Smithson, visual artist, educator and editor
“To enter Andrea Noel’s house is to step into another (studied, precise, yet entirely whimsical) dimension, one of endless possibility and connection. There is no one like Andrea or the cabinet of wonders that is her house and garden. The impeccable care and curation of matter, and of “moments” in space, that Andrea performs is a special kind of alchemy. No material, not even a bent and rusty snippet of wire, is beneath her notice, as she knows that every object possesses the power to charm if it can only find others of its kind. Her gift for arranging and collaging together the things of this world is a kind of repair: nothing is lost, abandoned, or alone, singular or mundane. I took my own photos when I visited Andrea with Aline Smithson, as it’s impossible to not document a rare encounter with the truly sublime, but I’m not a photographer. Dale Nile’s brilliant and engaging images re-combine Andrea’s combinations to capture the spirit of how Andrea sees and makes rather than what she’s seen and made. To study these wonderful photographs is to open a door to someone else’s (in this case, two people’s) imagination. In What Lies Within, Dale conjures enchantments that mirror Andrea’s own.
Alexa Dilworth, publishing director and senior editor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
Selected by Elizabeth Avedon's for her Best Photography Book 2021
PUBLICATIONS DETAILS
-Photographs by Dale Niles
-The book contains 150 full-color photographs printed with stochastic screening
-The hardcover, fine art photography book is a large trim size of 11.5"x10.5” with
-176 pages
-The smyth-sewn book features a lay-flat binding with 7 foldout sections.
-The book's hard case cover will be wrapped in a fine weave linen cloth with foil stamping and blind debossing
-The limited edition will be 750
Interview on WABE:
https://www.wabe.org/eclectic-collections-photographed-in-new-book-what-lies-within/
LINK TO ORDER THE BOOK:
whatlieswithineclecticcollections.bigcartel.com
The photographs she has created for What Lies Within: The Eclectic Collections of Andrea M. Noel, are not only the perfect creative cataloguing of Andrea’s well-developed sensibilities, but Niles’ images take possession of the objects in a new telling through staged tableaux and conceptual portraiture, creating her own reinterpreted collection of a collection. The work reveals a child-like wonder of photographic offerings, like a tray of Christmas cookies, each with its own delights and flavor.
Whatever the reason, collecting is, in fact, the transience of objects, objects that go on to have other lives with other people. And the ones that end up in Andrea Noel’s collections and Dale Niles’ photographs are the lucky ones – celebrated, revered, touched, and loved.
Aline Smithson, visual artist, educator and editor
“To enter Andrea Noel’s house is to step into another (studied, precise, yet entirely whimsical) dimension, one of endless possibility and connection. There is no one like Andrea or the cabinet of wonders that is her house and garden. The impeccable care and curation of matter, and of “moments” in space, that Andrea performs is a special kind of alchemy. No material, not even a bent and rusty snippet of wire, is beneath her notice, as she knows that every object possesses the power to charm if it can only find others of its kind. Her gift for arranging and collaging together the things of this world is a kind of repair: nothing is lost, abandoned, or alone, singular or mundane. I took my own photos when I visited Andrea with Aline Smithson, as it’s impossible to not document a rare encounter with the truly sublime, but I’m not a photographer. Dale Nile’s brilliant and engaging images re-combine Andrea’s combinations to capture the spirit of how Andrea sees and makes rather than what she’s seen and made. To study these wonderful photographs is to open a door to someone else’s (in this case, two people’s) imagination. In What Lies Within, Dale conjures enchantments that mirror Andrea’s own.
Alexa Dilworth, publishing director and senior editor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
Selected by Elizabeth Avedon's for her Best Photography Book 2021
PUBLICATIONS DETAILS
-Photographs by Dale Niles
-The book contains 150 full-color photographs printed with stochastic screening
-The hardcover, fine art photography book is a large trim size of 11.5"x10.5” with
-176 pages
-The smyth-sewn book features a lay-flat binding with 7 foldout sections.
-The book's hard case cover will be wrapped in a fine weave linen cloth with foil stamping and blind debossing
-The limited edition will be 750
Interview on WABE:
https://www.wabe.org/eclectic-collections-photographed-in-new-book-what-lies-within/
LINK TO ORDER THE BOOK:
whatlieswithineclecticcollections.bigcartel.com
