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       “ . . . what was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself,—life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?”
                                                                                        ~The Song of the Lark

  
Photographer’s Comments  
           In the above quotation, Willa Cather provides what I consider a classic explanation of the nature of art. From my perspective, this definition of art confirms the importance and relevance of the artful photograph.
        The Cather Foundation and the Nebraska State Historical Society possess an extraordinary collection of artifacts connected to the life and times of Willa Cather. Some are too valuable to publicly display; others too fragile; and some of the artifacts fit so neatly into the historic buildings that they are obscured. This photographic exhibit is intended to highlight a select few of these objects and denote their relevance to the life and times of Willa Cather.
         Like visual artists and writers, a photographer is constantly making choices. In this exhibit, I had the choice to employ the simplicity and power of black and white photography. However, I have always been fascinated with Cather’s use of color. She led a colorful life. She wore colorful clothing. She embodies objects, landscapes, even people 		 

in terms of color. In framing artifacts important in Cather’s life, color, it seems to me, is both inviting and necessary.        
         Light is also an important factor. Willa Cather came to the world of writing at a critical time in the arts—a time when French Impressionists painters, in particular, were concentrating on the use of light to dramatically change the way the viewer sees objects so that these objects are transformed from the ordinary into the extraordinary. In the same way, Cather used her power as a writer to suspend action within the narrative in order to transform images in a way that magnifies and sets them apart from the common.
         I have been humbled by the task set before me and thankful that I possess an extraordinary camera that, in effect, often thinks for me. I own a computer that can transform images at the touch of a key. It is no uncommon assignment to capture objects in the transforming power of light—light that isolates and magnifies an image into some degree of the extraordinary. I have the advantages of technology; how amazing it is that Cather was able in her descriptions to embody the essence of light, form, and color through simple, carefully chosen words that to this day astonish the world.

- Betty Kort,
      Photographer
 
 
 

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