Who will look at our photos when we are gone?

A box full of photographs, mostly portraits dating from the 1920s, through the 1950s, came to me by way of my Aunt Renee. She lives in Muscatine Iowa and acquired these images from a woman’s estate. The woman's heirs, not knowing or easily recognizing the sitters discarded the photographs. These once precious objects, had lost their value.

The idea that these images had to be attached to a memory to be important fascinates me.

Sorting through hundreds of photos, I realized that this was the woman’s personal collection representing all of her friends and family throughout her lifetime. People’s faces appeared over and over again at different stages in their lives and I began to take ownership of what I could discover from these pictures alone.

Captured by their universal beauty, I approach these images as subject matter and create my own relationship with these individuals. These portraits possess a look of determination and hope. They represent us all.

- Katherine Strause

Katherine Strause exhibits nationally and is currently the Artist in Residence in Painting at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University.