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Jo Warren

The Arts Center Exhibitions:

• 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011
• 'Where Birds Dream' Winter Show and Silent Auction, 2010
• 'Jo Warren,' Corrine Woodman Gallery, 2010
• 'Shrines and Reliquaries' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2009

Artist's Statement, 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011

For the past twenty-five years, the art of photography has been my passion and my purpose, and I am exceedingly grateful for that.  Along with my gratitude is the fact that I have no idea why photography chose me or visa versa.  The medium drew me in and wouldn’t let go and I find endless possibilities for creativity within its “arms”.  It feels to me to be a spiritual as well as an artful process.  By spiritual, I mean that its doorways show a wanderer, like me, a bit of the continuous mystery of our world and the opportunities to “see” things as sacred. I am just a regular person, and to be exposed to the gifts that photographic art brings, is like a miracle.  It is continuous inspiration and learning to an undeserving recipient.  It provides the chance to participate with others in the search for the various meanings of creativity.   It is rather continuous surprise and delight and I shall always be thankful for that.

The image I chose to do for “Portals” consists of two landscape photos taken in the dark months of winter. I see the winter landscape as a time when mystery is most exposed and its meanings most enhanced.  The trees and natural surroundings are bare and reveal their most naked being.  Their vulnerabilities are laid open as is their beauty.  As I walk along a winter path in late afternoon, memories seem to come more easily then they do in other seasons.  And so I wanted to do this piece, “In Winter Light, Passages to Memory” to honor and acknowledge this. 

Artist's Statement, 'Where Birds Dream' Winter Show and Silent Auction, 2010

I feel incredibly lucky to be a photographer tramping through the rainy landscape of the Pacific Northwest. I am passionate about our soft, watery light; light that makes colors tender, rich, and deep, light that falls in gorgeous tonalities creating metaphors for the mysterious nature of our existence.  

Taking pictures and working with them is a joy offering often unexpected results and pleasures. I love to see how hand-coloring and using old camera parts alter an image.  It’s almost as if the image itself knows what it wants to be and I am to follow its subtle hints. 

I feel very blessed that for over twenty years, I have been making pictures with my camera, and the process is always changing, growing from its own sources and the inspirations all around us. 

 JURIED EXHIBITS

• 2010-Mayor’s Art Show, Jacobs Gallery, Eugene, Oregon
• 2010-August 3 to September 4 at the Corvallis Art Center, Corvallis, Oregon
• 2010-Showing at the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery, Salem, Oregon.
• 2009-2010 Selected for this Exhibition Season, Jacobs Gallery,  Hult Center, Eugene, Oregon. “Earth, Light and Stone”-four-artist exhibit from Nov 2009 to Jan 4, 2010.
• 2009  “Shrines and Reliquaries”, The Arts Center in Corvallis, Oregon.
• 2009 The Mayor’s Art Show, Jacobs Gallery, Hult Center, Eugene, Oregon
• 2009 Mary Lou Zeek Gallery, Salem, Oregon “100 Artists Show”