Elayne Linn – Gold-rimmed Eyes

Light the SPARK: Emerging Artists Exhibit
SPARK Photo Festival Exhibit

Peterborough Public Library; lower foyer
345 Aylmer St N
Peterborough
705 745.5382
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Hours
Mon to Fri: 10 am – 8 pm
Sat & Sun: 10 am – 5 pm

Light the SPARK: Emerging Artist

Elayne Linn

Instagram @hopeful_caterpillar

Elayne Linn’s exhibit is sponsored by INSPIRE: The Women’s Portrait Project

Bio
Elayne Linn is a hobby photographer who seeks the little things in Nature for her wellness and joy. For her, the little things are big and magical. She also finds joy in road trips throughout the countryside, photographing old things like barns, abandoned rides, and forgotten cemeteries. In recent years she has completed online digital photography courses, including Secrets of Better Photography and Photographing Nature with Your Digital Camera through Gale Education Courses. She has also recently joined the Northumberland Photography Club and the Willow Beach Field Naturalists. Find a glimpse of her work on @Hopeful_Caterpillar through Instagram where she shares her love of nature and photography, as well as her passion for pottery and wellness. Elayne lives in Cobourg with her husband, son and whippet.

Artist Statement
Walking slowly through Nature makes me feel small and connected to the universe. In the grind of daily life, it is easy for humans to forget to rest and care for our bodies and minds, yet as soon as I get to the woods or water, I feel grounded in the present moment, and my mind calms and centres, no longer dwelling in the past or future.

For me, taking photographs is about capturing the moment and the ever-present beauty of nature, regardless of whether I use my phone or DSLR. As Vincent van Gogh said, “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” This has been my experience from the time I was a girl, catching butterflies and picking blackcaps while living in an ever-growing subdivision in a house that backed onto a pond and woods, now both buried under a house or highway.

My connection to, and loss of, nature inspires me to treasure all of the little things like lichen and moss, fungi and fiddleheads. And snow and ice and fallen trees, and birds and all the beings who live in threatened spaces. Humans are part of nature and we need natural spaces as much as any insect or plant. Mary Oliver, nature poet, introduced me to the truth that toads have gold-rimmed eyes in her poem Toad, the beauty of which I witnessed for myself years after when I photographed a frog with those same gold-rimmed eyes. Through her poem Wild Geese, Mary also introduced me to the “family of things”, which is the theme of my exhibit through Spark. All of us, from humans to ladybugs to sea turtles to moss, are all part of the family.

Connection, belonging, interdependence and the web of life are themes I hope to convey through my photography. Through my photos, I want people to see the little things for themselves and to realize that the little things are actually big things that we cannot afford to take for granted. I want people to see how frogs’ eyes are wrapped in gold, and to get up close to lichen, and the beauty of fungi, and the goldleaf that fiddleheads are wrapped in as they crown through the earth with the hope of reaching the sky. While not all of these images are represented in my selection, they are all part of the beauty I have witnessed on my journey through life and nature. My wellness and joy as a human are connected to the natural world and I will always find beauty wherever I go.

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