ON THE MAP | Rudy Salgado and Susanna Crum

Gallery Hours: Monday-Thursday: 10am-5pm, Friday: 10am-3pm (Admission is free of charge)
VSU’s Dedo Maranville Fine Arts Gallery and Martha G. Smart Gallery are located on the first floor of the Fine Arts Building, at the intersection of Brookwood Drive and Oak Street.
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@VSUMaranvilleGallery | ![]() |
@VSUMaranvilleGallery |
ON THE MAP | Rudy Salgado and Susanna Crum |
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How and when does a town begin? In the US, the naming and establishment of a post office have inscribed the intention and identity of a town on maps and within communities. From the 1860s to the 1930s, itinerant tintype photographers traveled the country with mobile portrait studios. They summoned ghosts in the atmospheric backgrounds of their images or documented soldiers and the deceased for inclusion in the newly popular family photo album. Tintypes were the first affordable means for Americans to share images with distant family and friends, as the photographs on metal could be reliably placed in the mail. Rudy Salgado and Susanna Crum traveled with a mobile darkroom around the state of Kentucky, investigating historical post office sites with this 170-year-old method. In their hours spent producing hand-poured plates on site, they met property owners and history keepers who shared stories of the post office as a crucial community-powered site for information and social exchange. On the Map includes photographs, drawings, and postcards from this research-led journey. |
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About the Artists |
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Susanna Crum and Rudy Salgado live in Louisville, Kentucky, where they operate Calliope Arts, a shared workspace for artists working in print media. They received MFA degrees from the University of Iowa in 2012 and moved to Louisville to work as artists, collaborators, and educators. Together, they care for property and a house built in 1885 in downtown Louisville, including their residence, printmaking, wet plate collodion photography studios, a large kitchen garden, and a chicken coop. They have exhibited solo and collaborative projects across the US and abroad and have received numerous grants and awards. They have recently attended artist residencies at Kunstarhuset Messen, Ålvik, Norway; Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, Scotland; Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA; and Mildred's Lane, Beach Lake, PA. |
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Bryants Store Chromaluxe print from wet plate collodion tintype, 2021
Two men came down from yonder holler, broke into the store, and stole a lot of things. Flour all over the floor. He remembers seeing their footprints in the flour before anyone else knew about the break-in. Daddy had fed them dinner, and one of them had his feet up by the fire. He had a nail sticking out of his shoe. When he saw the footprints in the flour, you could make that nail out clear as day. |
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Waynesburg I Chromaluxe print from wet plate collodion tintype, 2021
His bike alongside him, he treads across the railroad tracks in his socks. He’s on his bike most all the time, so he usually knows what’s going on. What his grown-up neighbors are up to. When the door is unlocked to this building. He heard a man hung himself there, and then it was a dentist’s office. |
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Waynesburg II Chromaluxe print from wet plate collodion tintype, 2021 |
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Montpelier Chromaluxe print from wet plate collodion tintype, 2021
Her husband calls her “The Information.” When they demolished the old post office, she wanted that window. The one they scratched with the diamond, writing their names. She spoke to the guy taking it down and told him she had fifty dollars cash. He wouldn’t sell it, but let her pay the fee for taking it down. So it went to her house across the street, instead of the auction. |
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Rowletts I Chromaluxe print from wet plate collodion tintype, 2021
We set up in a parking lot above the Louisville & Nashville Railroad tracks. A red truck drives by slowly. And again, slower still. He parks in between two church buildings a block away, with just enough space to watch us. Rudy says, “Grab the cameras and the tripods and get them set up right now.” |
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Rowletts II Chromaluxe print from wet plate collodion tintype, 2021 |
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Hand Chart, 2022 |
Department of Art & Design
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VSU - College of the Arts
Department of Art & Design
Fine Arts Building
Room 1070A - 1st Floor
Valdosta, GA 31698 -
Mailing Address
1500 N. Patterson St.
Valdosta, GA 31698 - Phone: 229.333.5835
- Monday-Thursday
8:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Friday
8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.