“Everyday/Every Day” &
“We’re All Looking for Home, Beauty, and Freedom”
November 2 - November 30
Opening Reception on Arts Night Out
Everyday/Every Day
On the Mezzanine
Everyday/Every Day is a photo-a-day project undertaken by three Northampton, MA women
who have committed to choosing one photograph to post on Instagram. Beginning in December
2021, the women, members of a peer-led photography group, decided that posting a daily photo
was a way to be held accountable and to share their work. During the past almost three years,
the photographers discovered the deeper spiritual value of focusing on the often-overlooked
beauty of ordinary, everyday life. They have found that this practice has sharpened their artistry
and plan to continue.
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Deb Lohmeyer (She/Her), a self-taught photographer, has lived in the Valley for 39 years. She began taking photos in 1979 with a Pentax K1000 in Southwest Missouri, where she grew up and was inspired to read photography books and experiment with different techniques.
In the early 2000s she bought a digital point and shoot. She started taking photos for personal use from which she made color notecards. In 2017, with a new digital camera, she renewed her passion by taking classes at Hill Institute in Florence, MA, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.
In 2019 she formed a peer-to-peer group for women photographers which is ongoing.
In her black and white photos, she is drawn to the tonal aspects of rural and urban landscapes that, through shadows, light, and mist, express both possibility and memory. In her work, she hopes to evoke and invite the viewer’s emotions.
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Joyce Lak (She/Her) is a Northampton native. Since she retired as Head of Procurement and Stores, Physical Plant Department, U/Mass, Amherst, she has been able to continue raising champion dogs and to indulge her passion for photography.
Joyce has taken photography classes with John Green at Hill Institute, Dede Steele at Smith Vocational School, and Jim Spencer and Marty Espinola, both at the Northampton Senior Center. Joyce is especially grateful to the late Roland Normand, a mentor who was inspiring and more than generous. Roland saved her much effort by guiding her to the Panasonic Lumix line.
Joyce finds Western Mass a glorious place for nature photography. She especially loves working with macro subjects that offer details too fine and too brief for the naked eye. Her favorite spots for pictures are the Northampton Community Gardens, Look Park, Childs Park and the surrounding rural towns. She enjoys the challenge of taking photos each day without fail, as this group has done for the past three years, comparing each others’ results.
Camera equipment is a digital mirrorless Panasonic GX85 camera with various lenses. Favorite lenses are an all-around lens, the Lumix 14-140 mm, and a macro lens, the Olympus 60 mm.
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Nancy (She/her) was a founding faculty member of Hampshire College, where she taught organic chemistry and related courses from 1970 until she retired in 2008. In addition to teaching, Nancy was instrumental, with other women in the School of Natural Science, in creating the Women in Science Program. She also collaborated in developing the Day in the Lab programs which invited middle school girls and students from underserved schools into the lab for a day of hands-on projects; these included isolating DNA, doing experiments with insects, and making slime and superballs
After retirement, Nancy and her dog visited nursing homes, rehab centers, and college campuses under the sponsorship of Bright Spot Therapy Dogs.
Then in the spring of 2017, Nancy enrolled in a nature photography course at the Hill Institute, where she explored new ways of looking closely at the world. She completed three spring semester courses, but COVID-19 closed the classes at the beginning of her fourth semester. During her time there, she exhibited her work at the Hill Institute as well as in several art spaces in the Northampton area.
On January 1, 2022, Nancy and two friends made a new year’s resolution to take at least one photograph a day and share it on Instagram: no cheating on dates and no skipping. This practice has become a way of life – they are now almost through their third year and enjoying the challenge immensely.
Nancy’s scientific training informs her approach to photography. Both require seeing with new eyes, understanding and experimenting with light and color, and appreciating structure and composition. Photographing every day has introduced her to new places, new techniques, new friendships, and a greater understanding of the world we all live in.
We’re All Looking for Home, Beauty, and Freedom
On the Lower Level
The work is an interrogation about notions of home, we arrive at a collective human experience. How do people look when they are sad or anxious? What does a photograph of a person sitting on a park bench tell the viewer of the photograph about the stranger? More importantly, what do these conclusions about strangers tell us about ourselves?
Adeyemi Adebayo seeks to critique and understand themselves through their observations of others. They notice that they are drawn to people in spaces that feel familiar, particularly public places. "What can I interpret from what I see?" they ask. Adeyemi is also attracted to people at rest, recognizing that all moments of rest are temporary. They find themselves often in solidarity with the various moods they encounter.
Adeyemi's work explores the human disposition as it is expressed in various states and throughout different periods. A recurring theme in their work is the quiet, contemplative, and subtle yet revealing nature of people as they navigate life. This includes moments like enjoying a day at the beach or fighting for freedom against oppression.
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Adeyemi is a Nigerian documentary photographer currently living in Massachusetts. In his work, he explores man and his environment, particularly migration, strife, and the notions of home. He is interested in photography alongside other art forms as a means to evaluate dispositions and the human experience critically, both in the presence of bodies and the potential absence of, as they undergo movement, daily life, subjugation, injustice, and prejudice.
