Portrait Galleries

Funny how time takes you where you need to go. "Meet the Beatles" came out when I was a girl. I can remember thinking how cool it would be to make photographs for album covers . . .

Since the late 1980's I have been going to clubs to dance and to take photos of my favorite musicians. Along the way I began making portraits for them. Some were used for publicity and some for CD covers. Making someone's portrait is a very different process than shooting at a club. There is a one on one, give and take connection that has to happen. What I am looking for is not visible immediately to me. We have to get to it by working together. I cannot successfully do it alone. The portrait must go beyond just being a record of their face, it must hold a bit of their soul and mine.

Living in Iowa City was key in meeting writers; the Writers Workshop is here. Jorie Graham was my next door neighbor and we became friends — our daughters were close in age. The first time I photographed her was for the back cover of "Region of Unlikeness". Soon after, I met Chris Offutt at the Foxhead in Iowa City. Since that time, I have had the pleasure of making numerous portraits for Chris and others, including Thisbe Nissen. Thisbe and I met when she was searching for a cover image for her first book . . . "Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night." The University of Iowa Press published her book with an image of mine on its cover.

Meeting people via photography is something that I enjoy very much. It gives me an opportunity to get to know a person in a way that I could not otherwise. The photographs travel everywhere and live in the world in a way they could not if they were confined to a gallery setting.