My mission is to show the beauty and individuality of everyday scenes in West Virginia and beyond.
I have used cameras and studied photographs since I was a small child. In 2000, after retiring as a social worker and planner for the State of West Virginia, I became a professional fine art landscape photographer. Since that time I have been awarded a number of grants and the WV Fellowship in Photography through the former WV Division of Culture and History and the WV Commission on the Arts. My photographs have been included in solo and group shows, including juried exhibitions, throughout the state. I have also coordinated and curated exhibits with other West Virginia photographers.
I sell my photographs in the form of note cards, unframed prints of various sizes, and framed prints. Please email me at [email protected] for a price list and further information about retail outlets.
In late 2012 my book, New Deal Photographs of West Virginia, 1934-1943, was published by the West Virginia University Press. This book includes 150+ of the over 1600 photographs that were taken by ten professional photographers who visited the state in association with the Farm Security Administration (FSA) Project. The book builds on a number of mini-exhibits and articles, funded in part by the West Virginia Humanities Council, that include photographs that were taken by Ben Shahn and Marion Post Wolcott in the southern coalfields.
As an offshoot to the book a mini-exhibit of photographs of Tygart Valley Homestead has been available for tour along Route 219. There is still a potential for further mini-exhibits of photographs from the book, particularly in Monongalia County and the extended Scotts Run community. I will be pleased to consult with anyone who would like to pursue this kind of project.
The FSA Project photographs are available for download through the Library of Congress at www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa. These photographs are in the public domain, except where specifically limited by copyright, and there is no cost for using the current scans. The Library has upgraded most or all of the scans to a high resolution.
One new project is to publish either online and/or in print a portfolio of my photographs with each photograph accompanied by a brief narrative text. I am not a professional poet, and I have the greatest respect for those who are. Rather I have borrowed the poetic format as a kind of "outsider" poet as a way to share my thoughts about my photographs and what they have meant to me.