Encountering the universe through photography!
I took up photography many years ago after going scuba diving for the first time. I was a farm girl from rural Iowa and had to find a way to share what I saw with family and friends I knew would never see it firsthand.
As an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, I exhibited locally and won a couple of photography awards. Graduate school, then full-time teaching, and almost 10 years as an academic department head pushed photography out of the picture for a time.
Hurricane Katrina inspired me to pick up my camera again, and I produced "WATERLINE: an interactive photo installation." This critically acclaimed major work was exhibited fifteen times throughout Louisiana and in Florida and Philadelphia, and is now available as the book, "WATERLINE: landscape with voices."
One influence is Georgia O'Keeffe, who could draw a banana plant or paint a landscape pregnant with the human condition. Another is Margaret Bourke-White, who saw beauty in industry. Current subjects include people who work/perform in public spaces, the natural world, and the built environment, especially construction sites (search online for #HardHatArt and #PerformanceArt) and agriculture. I enter national juried shows and am accepted with some regularity.
I also write. I'm working on a couple of book projects and I blog at https://edge-essence.com/blog/. I'm a Master Naturalist and an Episcopal Deacon, and my photography is very much a part of both of these identities. Ask me how!
