My images are made with a pinhole camera. The pinhole is actually quite simple and very complex. I am intrigued by the long exposure and the surreal reality it portrays. Watching the landscape while the film is exposing conveys to me a sense of wonder and innocence toward our planet. I often question why I stop where I do. It is an immediate reaction, a need to comprehend the world before me, whether it’s Hovenweep or the Swell in Southern Utah; my family’s ranch in South Dakota; Civita, Italy or Willapa Bay in Washington State. These photographs are proof of my wandering to find an image.
Perfection is a fallacy. Inclusion is what is important. When an image is taken out of context, possibilities open up. Imperfection fuels my imagination: it can be a beautiful confection or a simple loaf of bread. Embracing the complexity of the world is my intention as an artist. Interpreting the image is a collective experience. For me, these landscapes are one way to sort the plethora of images humans face; they help me tell our story.
I rely on many artists to help me find my way in the world: painter Hieronymus Bosch wasn’t afraid to put everything into his art; pinhole photographer Nancy Spencer, changed reality for me; my grandmother Bertha Boysen Neuhauser, a farmer and accomplished amateur photographer worked in isolation for over sixty years; Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian writer, impressed upon me a hunger to see, find, and live in a landscape.
I was raised in Kitsap County an hour west of Seattle by ferry. My family appreciated photography, and I grew up looking at my father’s World War II photographs and my grandmother’s photographs of the family farm in South Dakota.
After college I moved to New York, where I renovated a building in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, and earned an MFA in photography at Pratt Institute. I Worked as a freelance editorial photographer and taught at the International Center of Photography in New York until 1991. I moved back to the Pacific Northwest and discovered pinhole photography and started The Pinhole Project, an archive website and blog about pinhole photography. Since then, I shoot landscapes with pinhole cameras, or night photography with a DSLR.
I have taught photography for years in many venues and I currently teach classes at Photographic Center Northwest. My work is in several collections and has been widely exhibited and published. My solo exhibitions include Self Portraits at Art Space on Bainbridge Island; Red Hook Stories, at Kentler in Brooklyn, NY and The Italy Photographs at the UPS Gallery in Tacoma, among others. I’ve been granted two artist-in-resident fellowships: the Civita Institute in Italy; and Willapa Bay program in Washington state. Recent grants include Kitsap County 1% for the Arts Grant/Purchase Award, Shunpike Storefront Windows Project, and The City Panorama Project. I have lived in an artist co-op in Seattle since 2005.
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