Ohio

July 1, 2014 by Kat

Photo-Heart Connection: June 2014

Unexpected. That’s the word I woke up with today, my Photo-Heart Connection already formed in my head. The last couple of months have brought much that is unexpected my way: A new job I wasn’t looking for; a whirlwind trip to Ohio and my deep emotional response; a kitchen disaster that has left my house in a state of disrepair. I couldn’t have predicted the events that have come my way. I couldn’t have prepared.

So it shouldn’t surprise me that my Photo-Heart Connection comes unexpected this month, too. I didn’t even have to choose this month’s photograph. I knew, last night, as I prepared my photographs for review. I knew, this morning, as I woke up with a word in my head.

I love this photograph. I think, quite frankly, it might be the best one I’ve ever created. There is something about the composition, the light, the moment, the processing, which all work together beautifully to tell a story. For some reason, it brings to mind the Vermeer painting, The Milkmaid. I remember seeing this painting in person and being utterly amazed by it. Vermeer masterfully worked with the subject, the light and shadow, and the moment to tell a story that spoke to me centuries later.

So, similarly, this image speaks to me. But of what? An unexpected moment. A story to be told. A story of life, unfolding before us. A story of people, individuals, that cross our path and change things. A story of events that happen outside of our control. The question is, are we there to live it? Are we ready to capture it, no matter how unexpected, and hang on for the ride? Are we ready to be jostled and tossed about as we are pulled along?

I am getting better at being ready. This photograph proves it. The time, the place, the moment – all unexpected. But I was there, and responded.

And I’ll be ready and open for whatever comes next, however unexpected.

These last couple of months have been a bumpy ride, it seems. I’m one month into the new job and still figuring it out. Our kitchen is now marginally usable and we are still getting quotes to decide what we are going to do next. My first art fair is barely two weeks away and I’m spending much of my time to get everything ready. I haven’t had a lot of time or energy for my blog, or anything online really. But my photographs, working with the images from my trip to Ohio early this month, have been an unexpected creative bright spot. I have gained so much personally from working with them, seeing the stories within them. Stories of my father, my family, me. I am amazed and humbled by this art form, which is constantly revealing layers of my heart and soul.

What have you discovered this month? What is your Photo-Heart Connection? Share it with us here. I want to thank you all for your continued participation. I love how, regardless of how engaged I am at the moment, you continue to do this practice for yourself and share it with this community. This is not about me, it’s about each and every one of you. Such an amazing and humbling thing to realize.

PS – You can now link in with Instagram photos! Learn more here.

June 25, 2014 by Kat

Telling Stories

I believe all photographers are storytellers. Whether we are telling the story of an event, of who someone is, or of beauty in the moment, every photograph is a story. As we put these individual stories together, they become the story of ourselves, the photographer. Where we come from, who we are interested in, what we see, how we choose to portray the world. Whether we realize it or not, we are in every photograph we create.

Returning from my family visit to Ohio, I realized that there is a story to tell in photographs that I haven’t told before. A story I was able to photograph for the first time since becoming an artist. In my few days there, I barely scratched the surface. I didn’t even really try to capture and tell this story fully, but I see it there, in the images I returned home with.

It’s the story of my family heritage on my father’s side: Amish.

But it’s not just the story of “the Amish.” I’m not an anthropologist or historian, to chronicle the timeline or study the culture. I’m not a reporter, looking to get the inside scoop. It’s the story of my father, my family, me. I want to understand how it all fits together; how it influenced who I am.

My father grew up Amish on a farm in Holmes County, Ohio. He was one of nine children: Eight are still living, seven are living in or near Holmes County, five remained Amish.

My Uncle Aden now owns the family farm, 155 acres in total, which includes 50 acres of woods, two farm houses, outbuildings, and a barn of which no one quite knows the age. My Uncle David estimates at least 150 years old.

Growing up in Colorado, we visited every year or two. We were suburban kids getting the taste of a farm life for a quick week. My dad pitched in with the chores and we could tag along in the barn, as long as we stayed out of the way or helped our cousins. We might get to feed the horses, the giant draft horses that worked the field or the buggy horses, almost dainty in comparison.

We might try milking a cow (by hand, at that time) or try to catch the wild barn cats who kept the rodent population in check. There were always adventures waiting in the barn, if you weren’t afraid to get dirty.

Those memories are just echoes in my head now. There are no cows left on the family farm where my father grew up. The milking stalls are empty.

The milk house is quiet. Left as if someone might come back, any moment, and start the operation up again. Maybe someday, one of my cousins or my cousins kids, will start farming here again.

It’s a hard life, but an honest way of life. You think, looking in from the outside, that it is so different from our modern lives, but it’s not really. It doesn’t have to be. Living simply, working hard, enjoying family, creating community… We can all have these things whether we have electric lights or not. They are all choices.

My father chose not to remain in the Amish way of life, but he chose the things that mattered out of it. And each of us, me, my sister and brother, have that handed down to us as well. We get to carry that piece of the Amish heritage with us.

This was the story that came out of my photographs. A tiny piece of who I am and where I came from. I didn’t know I was capturing this story, any story really, when I was there. I sometimes forget that my photographs are not of some random subject, but of me, no matter what thing is in them.

Looking at these images, I feel as if there are so many stories left, waiting to be captured. Waiting to be told. I feel a pull to go back, and explore these stories more.

June 17, 2014 by Kat

My Father’s Woods

On my recent trip to Ohio, I was determined to go for a walk in the woods on the farm my father grew up on. Not an easy task, when you have a grandmother and seven aunts and uncles, not to mention the cousins, to coordinate visits with over four days. Especially when you are the last passenger in an SUV holding your Mom, sister and her son, brother, his wife and their ten-month-old baby.

We were staying close enough I could walk there, if I could fined the trail. The first time I tried, I couldn’t find it. I was so disappointed, I thought my childhood memory of the way had failed me, until a cousin told me that things had changed. You had to go down further and catch the track in a different place.

In our rush from place to place, by the last night there I still hadn’t made it to the woods. When I woke early the next morning, I knew it was the right time to go. Quietly getting up and heading out, I found a world filled with misty light. A heavy summer mist, born of the rain the previous days and the warmth of the air, the sun just beginning to break through.

I walked along the road and found the right track, running along a farmer’s fallow field. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place until I found the pond at the outer edge do the woods, and the track continued into the woods.

Before I left, I asked myself, would these woods feel like home? Would there be some childhood memory, some genetic memory, that would make this forest familiar?

I got my answer… It was no. These are not my woods. These are not my trees. There were no towering firs amongst the deciduous trees. No gnarled and mossy and twisty oaks. They were beautiful, but I had not spent enough time in these trees, as a child or otherwise, to make them familiar friends. Not like I have here in Oregon or where I grew up in Colorado. My time in Ohio has been too brief. Too infrequent.

But I enjoyed my misty morning walk in the woods, nonetheless. I found myself at my grandmother’s house at the end, and had a quiet morning visit with her and my aunt. On the walk back, I found myself thinking of my father, passed away almost nineteen years ago, and his childhood in this place; these woods.

This forest may not be my forest, but it is a familiar landscape to my heart nonetheless. It is where my father spent time and developed his love of the outdoors. What he was looking for in those times, solace or solitude or something else, I’ll never know. I never talked to him about it. I didn’t realize we had this in common, that I also had this need for the forest in me, when he was still alive. I didn’t have the vocabulary or the insight to discuss it. I wish I had. So very much.

So instead of talking to my father about his life and experiences here and how they shaped him, I listened to the birds sing. I looked at the light in the trees. I enjoyed the quiet misty morning on my own, before heading back to my own forest. Home.

June 13, 2014 by Kat

Back in Time

There is something about being with family that sends you back in time. Visiting my grandmother’s house in Ohio, along with my Mom, brother and sister, was one of those experiences.

It made me remember who I am, where I come from, but also who I am not.

It reminded me that I am my father’s daughter, and I have much in common with the family on his side. The homebody part of me. The introspective, thinking part of me. The part that wants solitude and time in the woods.

It also reminded me how much I am my own person, how much I’ve changed since childhood, but how easy it is to slip into expected roles. It’s as if we all step into our scripted places, when together. We aren’t always our real selves. It’s too hard to be, with so little time with each other.

But it was a reminder, of who I was, where I came from, and who I am now. A beautiful, poignant reminder.

All images are from my Grandmother’s house in Holmes County, Ohio, and processed using the Vintage Photo app.

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