Residency Artist - Visual Arts

Mary Strubbe

14 Far Hills Drive
Cincinnati, OH  45208
Phone: (513) 321-0497
Fax: (513) 321-0401
Email: mary@marystrubbe.com
Website: www.marystrubbe.com

I am a photographer. My goal in residencies is to teach students the use of basic camera controls, and help them explore new ways of self-expression through photography. Students who learn to learn to create images with a camera deepen and expand their individual voices. I encouraging participants to use critical thinking skills when looking at photos to help develop their creative process. In past residencies, I've worked with students on projects where we illustrated ideas by controlling elements in front of the camera; for example, creating small constructed still lifes, or painting with light by "drawing" with gel-colored flashlights during a long camera exposure. In other residencies, we've taken a more direct, "window on the world" approach to the project, photographing in the environments of the students' community and working with sequencing to visually tell a story.

Recently, I've taken a documentary approach to my subjects. I use the camera frame and perspective to select what is included or excluded from the image. When my mom died a few years ago, I went through the her house while her belongings were still intact and photographed the contents of her drawers. By visually recording her personal articles and how they were arranged, I show an aspect of her life. For the past year, I've been photographing the Cincinnati Observatory Center. I'm fascinated by the details of the place: astronomy journals from the 1800s, the curves and lines of the building, working telescopes that are over a hundred years old, and the community that supports it all. The challenge for me is to make images that represent the tangible and intangible aspects of the Observatory in an original way.

My interest in photography developed in high school. My dad was a photography enthusiast and we had a darkroom in the basement. I graduated from Indiana University and received my M.F.A. in Photography in 1990. Since that time I've taught photography in the Fine Arts programs of Northern Kentucky University and the University of Cincinnati. I work as a full-time photographer in Cincinnati.