Christine Nemec today with one of my photos at the Redux Gallery, Dorset, Vermont.

  May 2, 2009 – Big change in my creative life today. I went to the Redux Gallery in Dorset and signed limited editions of three of my photos, and Gallery Owner Christine Nemec announced this week that Redux has become the exclusive source for my photography. 
   Christine went through many of my photographs and chose three – the first Daily Egg, a Kinney Road storm shot, and one of the sheep, Rose and the farm. All three will be sold as limited editions for $300.
  Why sell photos this way? Why sell them as art?
  This is a huge departure for me, and an evolution in my creative life, and I wanted to explain it a bit. I’ve sold lots of photos, but in a more haphazard way, for much less money, and with much of the sales devoted to charity, especially hospice. That’s a worthwhile thing to do, but also a way to hide. I have not see myself as an artist, and didn’t really see the photographs as art. I am coming to see that some of them are, or might be.
  For several years, I’ve been working hard, day and night, in all kinds of weather,  to take pictures, researching and acquiring equipment, studying lenses, settings and light and coming to see the world in a different way, from leaves to county fairs and concerts, to hospice work,  dandelions, dying farms and landscapes. I don’t know that I have ever worked harder, come farther, or have farther to go.
  Christine’s notion, which I have slowly come to embrace, is to select those photographs that she calls “fine art” and sell them as fine art. None of my other photographs will be offered for sale, at least not now. Many people use my pictures as screensavers or as models for paintings, and I don’t object to that.
  But I am growing up. I am ready to be an artist, and that means valuing my work and seeing it as worthwhile, something artists learn to do. Artists, like writers, can be self-absorbed and pretentious, and this makes me suspicious of galleries and limited editions. But I felt nothing but good when I went into the gallery and signed prints of my work. Christine is genuine, supportive and impressive.
  My creative life is diverse and intense. I run a farm, write books, am returning to fiction. I plan to write a series of children’s books. I work with and write about animals.
 I now have a real passion for photography, and have taken thousands of pictures in the last few years. I can’t imagine a day in which I don’t take a picture.
  In one sense, this photographs have guided me through some dark and challenging times, whispering to me, bringing me to light and beauty and emotion. I see color and light differently, and experiences like the John Clark Dairy Barn are bringing me to consciousness about the power to capture mood, meaning and emotion through images. I am surrounded by talented artists, from the poet Mary Kellogg to Maria, whose quilts have taught me so much about color and perception.
  More than anyone, she has encouraged my photography. I am grateful to her.
  Now, Christine is challenging me to get to another level and to see myself as someone capable of producing what might be called “fine art.” Wow. That is a big jump for me. So we’ll see what happens.
  Three hundred dollars is a lot of money for a photograph, and the whole thing makes me nervous. It also makes me proud. The point is not how many photos I sell, but the respect and affection I feel for my own work. The link to Redux is to the right and on the bottom of the Farm Journal page.