Join the conversation
Subcribe to comment rss feedFeatured Photographer
Kathleen Donohoe
I was born in 1967 in Queens, NYC, and grew up in the woods of New Jersey. I attended College of the Atlantic, and graduated from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with a BFA in 1995. After 28 years in Maine, I recently moved to New York City.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
A number of Kate’s dreamlike images from her series Elutriate featured in a 4x4 Portfolio back in September 2015; they and their companion images from her website lodged in my mind and remain there. Judging by the reaction to the series when featured by Inside the Outside earlier this year, others feel the same. So what is it that attracts her to the New Jersey Meadowlands, an area known as much for its abuse as for its ecosystem, and why does she choose to work with pinhole cameras and the use alternate processes that include making her own black walnut ink and using rice paper as a print medium?
Can you tell readers a little about yourself – your education, early interests and career – and the environments that have shaped you?
I was born in NYC and lived in South Carolina and rural New Jersey until I was out of high school. I worked on a thoroughbred and a Standardbred horse farm and had several other jobs from the time I was 12. Upon high school graduation, I spent the summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts, driving a horse carriage, working on a whale watching boat, and volunteering for a marine science organisation in their dark room. That fall I attended Outward Bound in Maine for a semester on island ecology that brought me to the Chesapeake Bay and also Florida. From there I attended College of the Atlantic in Maine for two years, volunteered at a traditional wooden boat school, hitch hiked across the country, and worked in the US Virgin Islands. The second year at College of the Atlantic, I was hired as a teacher's assistant for a trimester in Greece and Turkey. From there I went to the Isle of Skye in Scotland for a while, moved home, and saved money for school. I transferred to Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where I remained until graduating, with two trips to Africa thrown in. I've done boat deliveries that have brought me 400 miles offshore, and travelled to quite a few other countries as well, so I guess that many environments have shaped me. I had a camera with me for most of my travels.