They don’t make them like they used to!

This phrase is applicable both to the photographer Jan Tiura, as to the large container ships that are the subject of her exhibit ‘Hulls: The Art of Decay in San Francisco Bay,’ opening tonight at Dickerman Prints in San Francisco’s trendy Mission district. Jan’s bright, colorful, large prints reflect on the beauty of the sea, as well as the scars of a fast-paced, global shipping industry.

Ruined for Indoor Work

It was the mid-1970’s when Jan set sail for the Galapagos Island with a classmate, who later become her husband, and their inspiring high school science teacher, later a life long friend. That sailing trip gave Jan a taste for sea travel, and a hint to the passion for the ocean that lead Jan to become San Francisco’s first female Tug Boat Captain.

The empowering impression of that first trip, as Jan says, ‘ruined her for regular work.’

Indoor work gave way to a deep fascination for the ocean.

One day, out on the bay, contemplating a next move her in young career, Jan remembers seeing a tugboat pass by, and she just knew – ‘I have to be on that boat. I could see myself out on the deck, clearing lines, so, I found my way to my first job.’

Getting a  tug boat job as a woman was not easy. To fill the time, Jan briefly worked as a photographer. Eventually, Jan’s break in arrived, she was finally on deck, working the same arduous tasks as the male hands.

It didn’t take long before Jan realized she was a ‘good boat handler.’

When I asked what it took to be a good boat handler, Jan replied, ‘you just know if you have it or not. It’s having a good sense for boats, their movement.’ Jan found an appreciation and respect  for nature gave her an advantage. By reading the elements, Jan learned to work with nature, rather than brute force her way over the tide. Instead, Jan harnessed the strength of  a strong breeze, a current, to help effortlessly bring the ship to dock.

Jan was hooked. With time, learning on the job, Jan Tuira also trained to become a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed tugboat captain.

Pushing Ships Around

Jan’s description of her work as ‘pushing ships around’ is too short a phrase to accurately describe the mammoth steel beasts she tugs safely in and out of the San Francisco Bay.

Over 35 years, Jan pushed around aircraft carriers, oil tankers, and as global trade increased, so did the size of ships, now 10,000 plus container cargo carrying giants moving back and forth across the seas.

Jan’s pioneering spirit is evident in her rich, engaging photographs of ship hulls.

Large bounding ships of steel are rarely considered ‘delicate’ and ‘intimate,’ and, yet, under Jan’s careful and skillful eye, this is exactly the transformation of each hull.

Jan Tiura captures both the beauty and the tragedy, in an instant leaving one with an inexplicable sweet and sad nostalgia.

Self-taught also as a photographer, Jan has perfected her craft over years, photography, a welcome focus during long, 2-week shifts, on board, full-time, on call, 24/7.

Jan began to take notice of the ship’s massive hulls. Soon, each hull became a ‘fascinating character study, each with a story.’

Jan’s career has also spanned a massive transformation in the U.S. and global shipping industries. Global, competitive and fast-moving, the new  seas float drastically fewer U.S. manufactured ships.

‘The top American shipping lines, like Matsun, and American Presidents Lines, those companies really valued their ships, they made sure to keep those ships in tip top shape. Those ships were built to last! Each ship was run as long as it was still able. Now, we have these increasingly larger, massive, giant 10,000, 12,000 container vessels carrying more and more goods over the seas.  Today, companies use computers models to predict the life of the ship, so a few years before the ships are retired, the companies stop scheduling the ship for an annual paint retouching, they let them go. So, you see that in ship’s hulls. These ships have a hard life, they have become entirely disposable. The sea, the wind, also take a toll. I seek out, and try to capture the character of each ship’

The Ocean

Jan remembers fondly a photo from childhood. In the image, she and her father, he rowing his daughter and wife, who snaps the photo. Father and daughter sitting together in the boat, smiling. Handsome and strong, Jan remembers, her father rowing, and how, later, he became a fisherman, carrying on a tradition he inherited at a young age from his Nordic relatives growing up outside Fresno. Jan was born in Berkeley, California and grew up on the San Mateo coast.

Although Jan and I have never met before, it turns out, we may have met at some point, at Martin’s Beach, where her family, like mine, made trips for the smelt fishing season during the summer months. I share my experience fishing on the Bay with my grandpa and dad when I was younger.

I feel connected in a shared love for the California coast. And, of a time gone by. An era when times were slower, although, perhaps in equal measure, with its own unique set of challenges.

Despite growing up in the rural and largely, unpopulated coastal area in San Mateo county, Jan was surrounded by art. Her mother, a painter and student of well-known coastal painter Galen Wolf.

Still, even surrounded by so much creativity, it was discovering photography, and that she had an eye for it, that Jan finally felt like she fit in with the creative family tradition.

‘Working gave me a chance to photograph as a part of my everyday life, which was a method of working that felt comfortable for me,’ shares Jan.

A perfect melding of the sea and steel, digital photography freed Jan to create the painterly, mesmerizing  ‘character’ studies, conveying an intoxicating hint of the ship’s journey.

The ‘Hull’ exhibit gives viewers a chance to appreciate a new dimension to Jan’s work, a departure from more representational images in her earlier work as a tug boat captain, also quite stunning, which were well received by colleagues and crew, who enjoyed the rare opportunity to see saw their work and lives reflected in print.

The abstract, colorful characters of the ‘Hulls’ exhibit affords a moment to contemplate.

‘This work will appeal to people on a deeper, intuitive level because, at first glance, one isn’t quite sure what they are looking at. Since its real, not designed, there is an opportunity to delve deeper, to contemplate the character, and in a way, see a reflection of oneself.’

These anonymous crates of metal become precious, silent carriers of beauty, history and our common story.

Ghost Fleets

As you might imagine, Jan’s second career as a photographer does not stop here.

Despite fewer and fewer American ships being built now, barge work continues. There will always be a need for a tow.

Still, the profession itself is shifting, now, most barge operators drive or fly in from outside San Francisco, increasingly under the very same global pressures that has transformed local, national and global shipping companies.

Jan’s Next Project?

The Ghost Fleet, ships whose time has come. A final resting place where these ships are broken down to be carted off in pieces. Some of these ships date back to WWII and the Vietnam War.

Growing up on the coast in El Granada, Jan lived next to the ocean for most of her life, freely exploring, watching from the coast, large ships sailing in and out of the Bay.

No doubt, Jan will bring her unique sensibility and creative vision, a valiant honoring for those days when California was part of a world in which ships were valued  until their very last natural days.

To see more of Jan’s work, visit www.phototiura.com.

Jan Tiura’s ‘Hulls: The Art of Decay in San Francisco Bay’ opens tonight at 6 p.m. at Dickerman Prints.

Seth Dickerman saw something very unique in Jan’s work. In a collaborative partnership, Seth and Jan discussed and selected the final images for the exhibit in a process Jan described as an ‘utter joy,’ a chance to see her work from a fresh perspective, and, which images most resonated. Seth Dickerman brought a skilled eye to the editing and exhibit process, in addition to creating the signature, custom Dickerman prints shown tonight.

Prints purchased on opening night receive a 20% discount.

Weds, Nov. 6-9

Dickerman Print   3180 17th Street  San Francisco

http://www.dickermanprints.com/hulls-jantiura.html