Being Seen

Sara Tucker
May 5
4 min read

Kathryn Harty Ross

Editor's note: To help me prepare for a talk about the work of Vermont photographer Jack Rowell, author of Jack Rowell: Photographs, I asked his friend Kathryn Harty Ross to write something about her experience of modeling for him in a series of studio portraits. Jack met Kathryn at a time in his career when he was concentrating more and more on studio work. "I learned a lot from Kathryn," he told me. The talk in Rochester (May 16) is called "Being Seen," and it delves into the effect of Jack's work on the many people whose lives he has touched. —Sara Tucker, publisher, Jack Rowell: Photographs

Jack Rowell and I met at the Jaffe-Friede and Strauss Galleries in the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College. The year was 1993, or thereabouts, and I was a 20-year-old college junior. My work study job at that time was gallery attendant. It was a great job. I was allowed to study when no one was in the gallery, and there were exhibit openings on a regular basis, which meant getting paid to eat fancy snacks with wildly entertaining artists. It was at just such an event that I met Jack. He had a solo show in one of the corridors in the Hop at the time, and I’d seen him around while his show was going up. On the day in question, there was an opening for Professor Colleen Randall’s faculty show. The paintings were atmospheric, leaning toward subliminal. Like when you stare at the sun through your closed eyelids and can still see some of the colors and light. I was the gallery attendant present at the opening, and Jack was a guest. I happened to be wearing a long navy and white floral maxi-dress that belonged to my roommate, Yasi. It didn’t fit me, really. It didn’t fit Yasi either. But it was the early 90’s and a size zero woman could wear a size 12 sundress with a cardigan and a mesh-veiled vintage hat and consider herself quite tolerably dressed. In any case, that’s what I was wearing when Jack introduced himself and asked if he could take my photo in front of one of Colleen’s paintings.

I’d been looking at his photos for weeks by then, so I was happy to oblige. He took my photo in front of a monochromatic yellow painting. To describe it as yellow doesn’t do it justice. Really it was so many shades of yellow it gave off golden light. I remember that yellow, despite the image Jack took and printed for me being black and white. In some way, that I imagine Jack was fully aware of, the black and white make the subtleties of that yellow painting even more intense. As you can imagine. I loved the photo. I still love it. It makes me look quite serious. In any case, Jack brought the print of that photo to me at work, and asked if I was interested in modeling for him at his studio space in Randolph, Vermont. I was enthusiastic, to say the least. Jack made clear that cash payment was not an option, but that he would provide me with large-scale prints of the photos I liked best. This was an agreeable arrangement for both of us, and the beginning of a fruitful working relationship.

I’m a black woman, and have a light brown skin tone. At that time I was pretty used to looking less than my best in photographs because the lighting favored whiter complexions than mine. Jack built a special light specifically for my coloring. Realizing this was profoundly moving for me. When I was standing under that big, golden light, I felt proud of my uniqueness. When I first agreed to model for Jack, I told him that I would only pose clothed. I’m selectively prudish by nature, and was entertaining thoughts of a career as an educator. That and the fact that I was in another state working alone — with a man twice my age, who I very slightly knew — were good enough reasons to bring plenty of clothes to our photo shoots.

I’m trained as a costumer, and I enjoyed the opportunity to dress up and inhabit different versions of myself while Jack captured the transformations. At some point, however, I began to think about posing in just my own skin. I had the opportunity to see some of Jack’s other work, including nudes, and I felt very comfortable working with him at that point. I want to make clear here that it was at my request that the nude photos of me were taken. Jack was aware of how young I was — 21 by that time — and did not try to influence my thought process on the matter of clothes or no clothes. Other factors that drove me toward asking Jack if we could shoot nudes were threefold:

1. I had a strong desire to document my coming-of-age so that when I became an old lady I would have those photographs to look back and recall who I was and what I looked like when I was young.

2. I had been a scrawny, brainy, ugly duckling of a child, and the photos that Jack had already taken had helped me to see that I was no longer living in that body.

3. The petty reason — a previous ex-boyfriend had told me a couple years before that no artist would find my body interesting because — in his words — I was shaped “like a mud flap girl.” Part of me really wanted to show that being busty did NOT make my nude body pornographic.

My ex is dead now, and I still look at the photos Jack took and I am proud of both of us. Jack for his artistry and me for making the decision to trust him to be the creative, considerate, and professional photographer that he is.

Congratulations on your retrospective, Jack. I’m honored to be included in your life’s work.

YOU'RE INVITED

Join Jack, Sara, and other Korongo members at the Rochester Public Library in Rochester, Vermont, at 4 pm on Saturday, May 16. Jack will sign books and answer questions. Sara will talk briefly about his work.