During these odd grey and isolated days, as the count-down begins for my textcentric posts each day in April to celebrate National Poetry Month, I have been thinking of poetry’s sister art, photography, and the ways I have tried to “write with light.”

This March, I have been looking out of the window more often. Also deep into closets and filing cabinet drawers, clearing and sorting accumulated paper. I’m having some surprising and delightful discoveries of forgotten moments; finding forgotten enthusisams that can be relived; and also experiencing moments of saying “Huh? Now why did I think this was so valuable?” Maybe you are doing this, too? With the mind more still it is easier to assess what really needs keeping. And it is easier to see the way life has moved us in new directions.

Take, for example, my love affair with photography. It started when I was a child pouring over the photograph albums kept up by my mother. I began taking photographs with a point-and-shoot camera in high school, and after seeing a life-changing exhibition of work by master Henri Cartier Bresson, I began to try to think in pictures, so balance the moment in terms of light and shadow, background and foreground, sharp and soft focus. When I was a junior in college, a young woman in my dorm, Jean, gave me a tutorial in one of the University’s student dark rooms. (If I can locate it in the now-mouldering stacks of mimeographed paper I have yet to sort, I plan to share here a poem I wrote about that day.) When the following summer I traveled to Wolf, Wyoming to work on a ranch (as a waitress on a dude ranch, I hasten to add!) I took a few images that still help me recall my early passion for photography. (Some of these I published last year, on Shakespeare’s birthday.)

I never became adept at F-stops or with baths of developer and fixative. Still, I kept pointing and shooting. I worked with professional photographers to secure the images needed to illustrate the profiles I wrote over thirteen years for a now-defunct publication for a prominent foundation. When Julia was born, the pace of photo snapping accelerated. In the years that Tim worked for fallen film giant, Kodak, I got my first digital camera, which was freeing. (From there, I discovered the digital SLR, followed most recently by the ubiquitous iPhone camera.)

When my father died, in December 2003, my grief created a turning point through photography, when I undertook a ninety-day study of an amaryllis against the backdrop of a friend’s painting. This spiritual and artistic exercise taught me as much about lifespan as it did about light and shadow.

Then, two much more brave and experienced artists helped me to move to a new level.

In 2005, a friend, Patsy Dew, and I, decided to collaborate. Some of you might recall Kalafield Images’ posters of locally sourced images, our five years of shared presence at the Northfield Arts Guild’s annual Art Fair during Defeat of Jesse James Days (2005-2009), our cards in local shops. Patsy is a bold and consummate artist in many disciplines, a Northfield Living Treasure. Her companionship emboldened me to share my work through sales and exhibitions. Patsy is still very active as a photographer. For a real visual treat, check her website.

Meanwhile, my sister, Karla, inspired me not only with her (VAST) technical expertise but with the exquisite images she captured in the wilds around Atlanta, Georgia where she lives and anywhere she travels. (A search on “Karla Schultz” here will yield many posts that showcase her images of light, landscape, flora, and fauna. One of her pictures of me appears below.) Her encouragement, gifts of equipment, and especially advice on software and camera care were invaluable. Most valuable of all has been the periodic opportunities to go with her on what we call “photo safaris.” I continue to learn from her work and her example.

A trip to Paris in March 2009, gave me new confidence. I brought back images that eventually led to an invitation for a solo show in Minnetonka, the subject of the “Part II” on this subject I plan to post soon.

Even as I have left printing, framing, and exhibiting behind, sharing images here instead and focusing more and more on poetry, prose, and essay, I still recall the thrill of seeing a photograph I had made printed large and hung like a window on an inside public wall. And so I thought I would share some of the highlights here, combining images of a variety of exhibitions.

SEBASTIAN JOE’S (2009)

An early foray was at a coffee shop in the Linden Hills area of Minneapolis, near Lake Harriet, where we lived prior to moving to Northfield. I recall my heart pounding as I inquired about showing my work, my astonishment at the easy “Oh, sure” that resulted. Once the date was set, Tim, my trusted artistic friend, Bonnie Jean Flom, and I drove with the framed photographs, wire and wire cutters, putty (to secure pictures to the wall.) I had already gone up to measure the walls and check light conditions so I knew what I wanted to print, and how to group them. Here was the artist statement

As a poet and photographer, words and images are fluid – not quite interchangeable, but closely related – with arresting visual images giving rise to poems and poems coloring how I view the world through my camera lens.

Photography helps me see everything around me with more tenderness, noticing beauty where I might otherwise overlook it. I’ve learned that each moment is distinct and unrepeatable. In a split second the light changes, the subject changes, I change. These photographs were taken in various locations (Northfield, Minnesota; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Atlanta, Georgia; and Paris, France). I hope they give you pleasure right here and now.

NORTHFIELD ARTS GUILD GALLERIES (2006-2012)

The Northfield Arts Guild has been a place of welcome for this budding visual artist. I first started showing photography in the yearly Members Show. In 2009, I was invited to show work in a satellite gallery they maintained in our local Allina Medical Clinic.

I was also thrilled to be included in a show of thirteen artists, curated by Patsy Dew and Meg Ojala in 2011, called “Northfield Ties.”

And in another show in 2012, “Small Works,” included two of my black and white images.

Also thanks to the NAG, I connected with an arts consultant who worked with hospitals and clinics. Through her, I was able to sell some photographs that are (I understand) in various collections. There are two here in Northfield. Here is my favorite.

THE CROSSINGS AT CARNEGIE (ZUMBROTA, MINNESOTA) (2010)

In January 2010, Marie Marvin invited me to show work in the art center she created in Zumbrota, Minneosota. The exhibit, and the lively opening, was a heady and heartfelt evening.

The Crossings has also been important to me through its annual Poet-Artist Collaboration which invited visual artists to interpret selected poems, then brought everyone together for a reading and exhibit and general celebration. Now that The Crossings art center has closed, I was cheered to hear that the event lives on under the aegis of the Red Wing Arts.

As my attention has moved away from exhibiting photographs (aside from here on the Winona Media site!) I thought about the sheer bulk and poundage of those images that had their moment in the sun. Many of these framed prints are still in our house, but one house can only shelter so many. Some have been sold over the years, and many given away. It is really rather pleasurable to encounter work around down, in the homes of friends or in a few public spaces like the Allina Clinic. I think of it as the grownup version of the thrill children have when they see their art work displayed on the refrigerator door of a neighbor.

Thank you to everyone who has cheered me on in my love of trying to take pictures, and especially those of you who have come to the various gallery openings over the years. On these grey and secluded days of narrow orbit, I am cheered by seeing again the shapes and color in these images. I hope that they have give you a moment of respite, too.

If you have read this far, thank you for joining me in scrolling down Memory Lane!