Adam Marelli is based in New York City, graduated from New York University (with a degree in sculpture and photography), apprenticed with a master builder for 10 years, and spent seven years studying with Zen monks before opening his present studio. He’s also a member of The Explorers Club AR’13, exhibits his sculpture and photography internationally, and is represented by Invisible-Exports. Marelli is an instructor at the Leica Akademie in New York and runs international photography workshops where he teaches the lost lessons of classical design. His works and writings have been featured in the New York Times, GQ, Forbes, Gothamist, Art Photo Feature, Doc! Photo, Phaidon Press, Origin Magazine and here on the Leica blog.
The urge to preserve the traditions of the past is only justified when it can be applied to the future. The paradox of balancing the past with the future, the invisible force that lies at the heart of the Japanese craftsmen, is expressed with uncommon insight and intimacy in Adam Marelli’s work, “Traces of a Lost Ceremony” that launches at the Leica Store Soho on May 8, 2014. His images will hang there until June 26, 2014. Here are some of this remarkable artist-photographer’s thoughts on his life journey, and the meaning of traditional craftsmanship in today’s frenetic and materialistic world.
Q: What cameras and equipment do you use?
A: I use a Leica M9 and Leica Monochrom with Leica 35 mm f/2.0, 50 mm f/2.0, and 90 mm f/2.5 lenses.
Q: How would you describe your photography?
A: Art photography with a focus on culture. I am interested in how we learn in all respects — how we learn to think, to form our own belief systems, and how we find purpose and meaning in our lives. This often leads me to the realms of master craftsmen, spiritual figures, and explorers.
I’m an artist first; it’s one of the few things I have known throughout my life. Photography is another tool for me. Paint brush, pencil, camera, they are all the same … some are just more expensive than others.
Q: Can you say anything about the process, mindset, or techniques you use to create images that embody these transcendent qualities of “how we learn, how we learn to think, to form out belief systems, and how we find purpose and meaning in our lives,” and can thereby move the viewer beyond their denotative or documentary value toward the state of consciousness of the master craftsmen and spiritual figures you depict?
A: These images were made as if I was an apprentice watching and learning the entire time. The project parallels development that any young apprentice goes through, first there is inspiration … then there is practice … then comes understanding.
My goal was to make a body of work about the craftsmen, only after I had learned how to be a craftsman. I spent years in construction and studying Zen meditation before I made these images, so the project lies very much at the intersection of those two practices. In order for me to come to a fuller understanding of what I learned, I wanted to explore them both at the source, or at least what was the source of inspiration for me, Japanese craftsmen.

Q: In what genre or genres would you place your photos?
A: The genre I work in is art photography. It’s not aligned with any particular school like the surrealism or cubism or abstraction. I make images with the understanding that good images make you feel something. I’m not so concerned with what a viewer feels exactly. We all see things differently. But the point for me is that we can see something and it makes us feel something and they have shown us how to see differently. At the end of my life, if the body of work achieves this, I will die a happy man.
Since I travel a lot for my work, there is a chunk of my images that would also fit into the street and portraiture category too. I like people, so both of those genres happen easily for me.
Q: Your statement that you “will die a happy man” if the body of your work shows people how to see differently, is heartfelt and profound. What do you think you have to bring to the image at the point of its creation and beforehand in order to achieve that lofty goal?
A: I find that good artists, the ones who really did change the way we see things, bring all of their experience to their work. They have an awareness of what they are doing, and they know where it fits into history and whether or not they are on uncharted territory. Otherwise, you end up running around repeating what someone’s already said.
Q: What approach do you take with your photography or what does photography mean to you?
A: Photography, like all good art, is a conversation with the past that happens in the present and informs the future. All of the cliches about photography — that it captures a moment, the human condition, or some piece of history — all of this not enough for me. These are the concerns of the photojournalist, most of which becomes irrelevant in a very short time. Cezanne made paintings of apples that still blow people’s minds. He changed the way we see; that is a real accomplishment. A good artist brings a value to their work, its subject, and they get people seeing in a new way.

Q: Did you have any formal education in photography, with a mentor, or were you self-taught? Was there a photographer or type of photography that influenced your work or inspired you?
A: At 11 I started adult painting classes and designed my education around the idea that all of my learning exists to develop my art. I did an undergraduate degree in sculpture and photography at NYU and sought out mentors in building, Zen meditation, and drawing, specifically after school. Going to school taught me that there is no greater teacher than experience steered by a good mentor (which is something schools do not provide).
Q: I heartily agree that there are limits to formal education and nothing beats getting out there and doing what you want to do, but is there anything else positive and useful that came out of your academic experience at NYU? And can you give us a few concise thoughts on, say, two mentors who influenced you and what you learned from them?
A: When I was in art school I learned that not everything has an answer. You can’t test for art the way you can for other subjects, so the education has to be different. Ultimately there is not much to measure. We learned to get comfortable in a space where there was no right answer. I found this useful because life is nothing like school. There are no grades or scales; it’s all what you make of it.
Two mentors who influenced me, especially for this project, were my construction mentor, Mark Ellison and my Zen mentor Fujin Butsudo. My life has been profoundly enriched by the opportunity to study under them both. It’s one of the reasons I encourage people in my photography workshops to find a mentor because it helped me enormously. If I could sum up each of them shortly I’d say this:
Mark told me that people always thought he was a genius because he could solve problems no one else could. He’s made most of his career that way, by solving design problems for people ranging from I.M. Pei to Santiago Calatrava. But he would say that he was not a genius, he had just made all of their mistakes already. The combination of accomplishment and humility is not something I see often, especially in New York.
And Fujin taught me something I have yet to master … do one thing at a time. It sounds like a foolishly simple task, but the level of concentration that it really takes to focus on just one thing at a time is easy to say, but hard to do.

Q: A number of the most compelling images in this portfolio are portraits of master craftsmen, and you note that some of your work falls into the portraiture genre. It is said that portraiture can attain the status of art because the physical aspect of all human beings bears the indelible stamp of their own condition. It follows that the portrait photographer succeeds only when that emotional and existential state of being of the subject has been captured and conveyed. Do you agree, and is your goal to create the portraits that embody these transcendent qualities?
A: People are complex. The idea that a single image, in some way, summarizes something about a person is an intense challenge. It’s probably why artists have been working on different solutions for 50,000 years. Making a portrait is a listening exercise. When I shoot someone’s portrait, we talk the entire time. In the moments of silence … click.
Q: You stated, in relation to your mission, that “photography, like all good art, is a conversation with the past, that happens in the present and informs the future.” I sense the intuitive truth of this observation and it seems to imply that while art is something physical that takes place within the spatial-temporal plane it also points toward the absolute and eternity. Do you have any thoughts on this, and is this a notion that plays out in your photography?
A: When you think about it, a photograph is nothing special. It’s a piece of paper with something on it. But what that means, now this is where things get interesting. And what lengths will people go to insure that it exists; now we are getting into really interesting territory.
The arts always need to define why they are important because they are constantly being labeled as non-essential. Just look at the American government’s dialogue. We need industry, we need the military, we need medicine, but art we can live without. But the ironic thing is that throughout history two things always survive: the things we make and the tools we used to make them. Sure, we need things like doctors, businesses, etc., but when we look at what actually passes through all of human history, other than our genes, it is the things we make. It might not be eternal, but it has lasted longer than anything else.

Q: One image in your portfolio shows a kneeling figure wearing a face mask. His eyes are intense and calmly inquisitive, and yet his true attention seems to lie somewhere else, as though he were caught in a mystical moment of being transfixed in a secret realm that lies beyond his immediate surroundings. Am I over the top here? Where did you shoot this image and what is actually going on?
A: This image was made inside an earthen oven built into a hillside in a national park just outside of Kyoto. Keijiro Miyanishi, the man in the image, is a retired television producer who makes traditional charcoal.
He was preparing a new batch of wood to be turned into charcoal. His personality was light, almost playful. But while he worked there would be these intense moments. I hoped to catch one and I did, which was rewarding because it balances the range of emotions he displayed all in a very subtle, dare I say it, Japanese way.

Q: This image shows a pair of sandals leaned up against a low table or bed with a tool and a few other objects placed in an orderly manner on top of it. The image has a monastic feeling as though this were a monk’s cell and the amorphous elements behind the door on the right give the image a more enigmatic quality. It seems to suggest the discipline and devotion of craftsmanship that is the antithesis of materialism. What were you thinking when you pressed the shutter release and what does this image mean to you?
A: This is one of my favorite images for two reasons. First, the Japanese love to play these games of subtlety. Everything from the food to architecture is designed in a way that you need to know what to look for because nothing will be screaming on the surface. This image echoes that approach and unifies the photograph with the subject matter.
Secondly, this picture captures the idea that craftsmen all practice a type of ceremony in the way they live. It is a process that is laid out for us to see. Let me explain. We are looking at the entrance to master blacksmith Yasuhiro Hirakawa’s place of work. These are his sandals, the scissors he makes, and the wooden models he uses to explain his work. Parallel to that is a summary of Japanese domestic architecture as we start with the earthen floor, then the large wooden step (called a shikidai), to the tatami mats above. We move from outside to inside, from rough to refined, from the master to his creation, all at the same time. The two processes are linked and overlapped in a way that we cannot divorce one from the other.

Q: This shows a man kind of absently touching the point of a large knife, presumably to assess its sharpness, but his expression is intense and his attention seems to be directed inward as though he was contemplating or formulating a creative goal or working out his approach in his mind. Am I on the right track, and what was he actually doing?
A: He is explaining to his apprentice what should be done in order to restore this knife. It is part of the learning process to fix older, broken pieces. This knife belonged to the bar owner where they would go drink on Saturdays, so the knife was badly damaged and needed a complete overhaul. The thing that stood out for me in the shot was the way in which Yasuhiro moved his hands around the knife. It’s very specific to a blacksmith. If they say the eyes are the windows to the soul, the hands might be the backdoors.

Q: Here, the figure’s hands are clenched in an expression that connotes a curious combination of calmness and tension that is almost prayerful as though he is seeking inspiration or considering what to do next. Clearly the focus of his attention is outside the frame so what his body is expressing is his state of being. To me this image says “through physical struggle to transcendence.” What does it say to you?
A: This was a man who chooses to work the tea harvest even though he is well into his seventies. He told me that the rewards of working in the fields accounted for his good health and for that reason, he asked me, “Why should I ever stop?”  There was a tree outside that was over 1,100 years old and he said again, “Look, the tree is still growing because it’s happy, why should it stop?” These little philosophical side notes left a lasting impression on me.  These are not people who simply go through the motions of their work. For them the work means something well beyond the surface.

Q: The image of a man in a field leaning on a rake has a beatific and blissful quality and seems deeply spiritual. Do you agree, and what is it that accounts for what appears to be a sublime level of connection, acceptance, and transcendence on the part of these two individuals?
A: When I arrived in the morning to shoot at Shunkoin Temple, Reverend Takafumi Kawakami said he had some chores to do and I could shoot while he worked. The wind and rain from the night before meant that he needed to redo the Zen rock garden.
To my surprise, he pulled out his electric leaf blower to speed things up. Over the motor we could not talk, but when he finished we had a long conversation about how Zen practice might be relevant in the future. Reverend Taka is focused on the development of Zen practice and its application to contemporary life. He said, “Look at me … I am one man and I have all of these chores to do before the temple opens at 9:00 AM. I use modern things like a leaf blower because they are of use to me. An old fashioned broom would take too long. But I can’t rake the garden with anything but a wooden rake. It just won’t work.”
To him, everything was about a balance … some of the old with some of the new, but always seeking to understand how they relate to one another. He talked about how it’s not just doing or just thinking; it’s not a purely theoretical exercise or physical one, but the balance of the two that matters. It was unique to see a man demonstrating his philosophy at the same time he explained it.
Q: What is it you find especially compelling about the black-and-white medium for your work? And what specific characteristics or features of the Leica M rangefinder cameras do you find especially conducive to your kind of photography?
A: When I decided to do the project I thought about the Japanese ink wash (Sumi-e) paintings that are all black and white. Subjects emerge from the background and then disappear again. It’s like looking at smoke; it seems so substantial and then it just disappears. Who knows what will become of these traditions; they might vanish into thin air. It remains to be seen. I felt like black-and-white spoke to that idea much more clearly than color.
As far as the camera is concerned, the Leica Monochrom is a bit of an anomaly. Who would want a digital camera that only sees in black-and-white? One thing I came to understand throughout this project is that tools shape culture. When you change the tools it affects the culture. Leica has, for many years, been contributing to that conversation. For me, it’s the balance between portability and image quality that Leica does so well.
Q: How do you see your photography evolving over, say, the next few years?
A: This past year I was accepted as a member at the Explorers Club here in New York City, which was a huge honor. It’s known as the club of firsts as their members were the first to the Poles, first to the moon and first to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. I would like an aspect of my photography to bring together the spirit of exploration and art so I might achieve my lofty goal of changing how we see.
Thank you for your time, Adam!
– Leica Internet Team
See more of Adam’s portfolio here and learn about his workshops here.