Essence of Transformation: Bloomington Photographer Creates Visions of Life
In Carol Koetke’s Bloomington home, it’s not exactly clear which came first: the studio or the living room.
Dressed in a loose navy top and a stretchy “work” skirt Carol finds comfortable, she bends over slightly in front of a gray wall covered by a white sheet that stands in the center of the room. The walls are lined with artwork, some her own, others that inspire her. She closes one eye and places her thumb in front of her, trying to find just where the light will hit a crystal vase just right.
“What I want to capture, of course, is natural light through this beautiful glass,” Carol says. “I want the essence of the glass, I want the shape of the flowers in the glass; that’s hard to do. To contrive a finished picture that includes these things is pretty hard, and I haven’t worked it out yet.”
Though she has been taking pictures her entire life, Carol still sees herself in a learning phase: Teaching herself age-old techniques in lighting and composition, as well as how to establish a presence in social media, all while continuing to make art.
“If there’s a day that goes by and I don’t learn something, that’s a day well spent,” Carol says. “Sometimes you just get exasperated trying to learn. What I try to do is not get stuck somewhere and not move on, and I think that I don’t.”
As a young girl growing up in Texas, Carol spent much of her time outdoors. Many of her family members were amateur artists: Her mother dabbled in watercolor painting, which she never took on professionally. Her uncle took her with him on photography excursions, teaching her techniques like aperture along the way.
Carol longed for a creative outlet, but southern women weren’t supposed to break from their traditional roles. After graduating with a degree in English, she married and had children.
“I figured raising three boys was as creative as you could get,” Carol says.
She still took photos, though resources for expensive equipment or a dark room didn’t fit in her family budget. It was only when her work was accepted into a gallery of emerging artists in Westchester, N.Y., in the 1970s that Carol realized other people enjoyed her photography, and would even pay for it.
“It took me a long time to get the nerve to go for it, and it was only a couple of early successes, what I thought were successes … and I thought maybe I can do this,” Carol says.
Since then, her work has been featured in close to two dozen galleries and festivals around the country, currently including The Wandering Turtle and By Hand Gallery in Bloomington, and Gallery by the Green in Nashville, Ind. She was By Hand Gallery’s featured artist last February, and is a member of the Gallery by the Green’s cooperative group.
“Some people in Bloomington, have been doing art festivals for 30 years. I was kind of new on the scene, and I really took off, so it was a lot of fun,” Carol says.
Festivals brought the shy photographer out of her shell, though she has scaled back to concentrate on personal work due to the demanding task of setting up and working booths for long periods of time, as well as the economic downturn.
“For first three or four festivals, I sat in back of tent. I figured my art would sell itself, and it does sometimes,” Carol says. “But it made me get out and explain things to onlookers. It’s like a huge open house or a cocktail party without the cocktails. You just talk all day about yourself and what’s not fun about that?”
As the times change, so have Carol’s abilities and her interest in subjects. She currently shoots on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR with a variety of lenses. Carol is also comfortable working with digital software like Adobe Photoshop to create photos such as “Double Poppy,” which was shown at By Hand Gallery. Carol took two photos of the same flower from different distances, and layered them to create a whole flower with a 3-D effect.
“At first, I only wanted to take pictures of things as they look. I didn’t realize the artistic changes made post-production are valid as art,” Carol says. “It just takes a lot off my shoulders if I can do it digitally. I no longer look at that as a secondary art form. It’s a new medium, almost. It’s still photography.”
Carol has gone through several phases in her photography, including a collection of wild bird photos, lakes, rocks and streams, and botanical images she tries to make look “painterly,” similar to her mother’s watercolors, without digital alteration.
Carol’s says her personal favorite photos are her studies of orchids. After a friend gifted her an orchid, she began growing and photographing her own.
“They don’t whine, they don’t walk away, they don’t cry or fidget or anything,” she says.
Much of her photography and inspiration comes from nature. She has lived in Texas, Boston and New York, and as part of her undergraduate career, studied at the University of Vienna’s Institute of European Studies. Her wanderlust didn’t stop after college: She traveled to West Africa with the Peace Corps, and one day hopes to be guided through the slot canyons of Utah or Arizona.
“I feel at home outdoors, less so in winter, I should admit,” Carol says. “I love scenic vistas, but you have to look harder to find them in parts of the Midwest. We have a woodsy backyard, and if you just sit still, things come along. And if they don’t, you’ve had a nice experience outdoors.”
Like the canyons, Carol’s current work focuses on the idea of passages, either physical ones like doors and pathways, or the concept of passing from one stage of life to the next.
A similar gallery involves transformations, or the change of a subject from its original purpose.
Carol was ecstatic to find a yard filled with old tractors that she could photograph close-up to depict the rust forming on their sides.
From a small-town Texas girl and mother to an award-winning photographer with an ambition to one day have a one-woman show in Indianapolis, Carol has gone through quite a transformation herself.
As winter approaches, Carol will do much more inside studio work, but she’s also excited to photograph the ice and fog brought on by cold weather.
The flowers in vases in her living room studio are just a study, a way to learn forms and patterns, as painters might do.
Carol hopes to create a panoramic display of three photos, one of each separate flower in its vase. It may not be hung in a gallery or in someone else’s home, but that isn’t Carol’s goal.
“If you have to worry about it selling, it kills the inspiration. You don’t want to be bossed as much as you don’t want to have to meet somebody else’s vision,” Carol says. “I’ve got this visual thing that I want and if I get that, it’s worth it. If I don’t worry about if anyone wants to buy it, it’s even more worth it.”
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