Mary Beck • Dubuque, IA • Photography
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An ongoing series, documenting sheltered spaces in the United States has been the main focus of my work. In the past decade, I have had the opportunity to work as a volunteer on photographic projects for both the national park and forest services.
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These assignments have allowed me to spend hours observing and documenting diverse landscapes such as mountainous terrains, deserts, seashores and swamps.
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Growing up in Dubuque, Iowa, I really didn't develop an awareness of the unglaciated make-up of the land that surrounded me. All I knew was that downtown truly was down the hill from where I lived. It wasn't until my first plane ride in college from St. Louis to Los Angeles that I had begun to acquire a sense of place, a sense of perspective, and a sense that here is a diverse set of landscapes out there way beyond Northeast Iowa--the plains, the mountain ranges, the canyons! WOW! |
My art is motivated by a fascination to explore and record everything involved in what gives the landscape its form and the human toil that maintains or changes it.
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