Photographed near Alyssa’s home around Bald Eagle Lake in Minnesota.
As a Travel Photographer, Alyssa photographed the East and West Coasts in the United States. She loves traveling with her camera to new destinations. A few of her favorite places she has been during her photography trips are New York City, the Redwood Forest in California and Canada.
Published Photographs in books, magazines, calendars, television and news media.
Clothing designed with photographs. You can find more of Alyssa’s clothing and accessory designs on her online creative shop. www.opalandbirch.com
CLOSE UP OF AN OLD RUSTED OIL BARREL FOUND IN A LAKE
ZIPPER BAG FEATURING A MACRO PHOTO OF DRAGONFLY WINGS
My grandma has always been an inspiration to me. Growing up she encouraged me to express my creativity. She was the reason I became interested in art at an early age. At 83 years old, she is still the light of my life and I look forward to seeing her every week. One of my favorite places is sitting with her at her kitchen table. The conversations we have are like the wine in our glasses: bold, sweet, and a little too much.
Grandma was an excellent painter. She painted still life and portraits of people. She used oil based paint on canvas with a pallet knife for her still life paintings and different size brushes for her portraits. Artistic talent runs in her family. Both her dad and brother were accomplished painters. Grandma hasn’t painted in over thirty years.
Growing up at her house, her paintings hung on the walls of almost every room. She had National Geographic magazines all over her house from decades of being a loyal subscriber. I remember sitting on the floor looking through all of the photographs of the amazing people and places around the world.
A few years ago she was diagnosed with dementia. Since her diagnosis, I have noticed her become increasingly forgetful and confused. Watching her memory slowly fade away has encouraged me to ask more questions and document what she still remembers.
For this project I explored my grandma’s house, capturing photographs of her, her paintings, and the tools she used to create her work. I found some of the same items in her house that she used to set up her still life paintings decades before. I recreated them by photographing the same objects in the same arrangement as she painted them fifty years ago. It wasn’t until I decided to do a school photography project on my grandma that I found out that many of her paintings I grew up admiring were portraits of people from National Geographic magazine. It became my quest to find the original images of the people in her paintings.
I traveled to numerous used bookstores in search of the magazines from the 1950s through the 1970s. I spent weekends flipping through magazines. One day I flipped the page and to my amazement there was the indigenous girl from Grandma’s painting. It felt like I won the lottery; I was overwhelmed with excitement. Grandma was just as happy. I continued my search at the library. I checked out dozens of magazines. I was disappointed to find many pages torn out or missing. Unfortunately, I have not found more of the photographs she painted. The search continues.
This project was displayed at the University of Minnesota Bachelor of Arts Senior Show in May 2012. It was hung in the Regis Center for Art. I invited my grandma to attend the event. I was anxious to see her reaction to this series. Walking towards the building I heard her ask, “What are we here to see?”
As she approached the familiar images, her jaw dropped and she covered her mouth. She said, “This is wonderful.” Grandma asked when I did all of this. I reminded her I worked on this at her house for the past several months.
Soon after we arrived people started recognizing her from my photos. She was thrilled to be acknowledged. The only people who have ever seen her paintings before were our family and her friends. She was standing in front of the display at one point, engaged in conversations about the project with a group of people. Conversing with all these people brought out so much emotion and joy. Seeing her transition from confusion to bliss was heartening. I will always treasure that moment.
On the car ride home from the showing, she told me she wants to start painting again.