2020 RECAP

Despite the pandemic, 2020 was an exciting year. I graduated in May from Maine Media College with my MFA in Visual Storytelling. Defending my thesis via Zoom to a gallery of faces was an interesting experience. I could not feel the usual support in the room that students from previous years got, but family and friends were able to attend who otherwise would not have made the trip to Maine. Sadly, there are no graduation pictures.

Goose River Field Notes, hardbound, 72 pages, 10” x 12’’ and contains 32 color photographs and 15 essays.

In June my book, Goose River Field Notes, came back from the printer and it was a treat to hold the results of a year plus of photographing and writing. Richard Reitz Smith, head of Maine Media’s Book Arts program, gets credit for the design. Cig Harvey provided her expertise with sequencing the photos and editing the writing. Nick at Conveyor Studio guided the printing process.  I learned that making a book is not a solo effort. A spread of some of the pages is in the gallery on this website. There are only fifteen copies left from this limited edition run of 100. If you are interested, please email me. The price is $50.

July brought news that my memoir essay, The Necklace, was accepted for publication in Goose River Anthology 2020 (not my Goose River) edited by Deborah Benner. It is a collection of short stories, essays and poems from 80 writers from all over the US and is available from Amazon.

During August and September, I took an online class at Maine Media, The Art of Book, with Richard Reitz Smith. The new book, working title Housekeeping Lessons, is about letters my mother wrote from her nursing home in response to self-portraits of my performing housekeeping chores the way she did them. The book is in progress. I am trying to determine the best way to put her handwritten letters in the book.

In October I took a weekend online iPhone movie class with Anna Graham through Maine Media. I was able to make a 30-second film on Saturday and a more ambitious 1:39 minute film on Sunday. I don’t know how I will pursue this, but it is truly amazing what a novice filmmaker can learn in two days. Anna is a talented and patient teacher and I hope she will be teaching another class for Maine Media this winter.

In November I received word that Goose River Field Notes was juried into the Davis Orton Gallery Photobook Show which is online this year through December and then will move to the Griffin Museum in January. 

I’m looking forward to 2021, hoping life returns to “normal” and more creative projects.