Carol Van Loon
Barns
The farm I grew up on is gone now. I learned how to see there: wheat swaying in the breeze, the many textures of the vegetable garden, a cow’s long eye lashes, aged wood, fences, trees and lots of rock. As I grew up, the urge to spread my wings, experience life, had a tighter hold on me than the farm did.
Photography for me stopped after the death of my mother and a dear friend, months apart. Deep in grief and ungrounded, I feared I wouldn’t be creating any new images for a long time. Then without being aware, I took a journey back to my roots, the landscape of my youth, photographing barns.
It all started with a snowy barn I had seen so many times before yet this time, I stopped and photographed it. Many more were to follow as I wandered through the farmlands of western New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Wandering back roads and breathing in the familiar smells of my childhood I began to remember my stories, stories I rarely told. I came to realize that as much as I had strayed from my beginnings, the sensibilities that were formed there could lead me to the next chapter of my life.
By combining the many images I had made of barns and the story of my journey the Barn book came about. I present it as a homage to the gifts my parents gave me, the farm I grew up on and the vanishing landscape of my childhood.
Artist Bio
Carol Van Loon is a black and white photographer from Dover, NH who sees a world full of contrasts, forms and patterns. She uses her vision to capture evocative scenes of environments and structures that convey stillness, permanence and sometimes abandonment.
Growing up on a farm in western New York, Van Loon was surrounded by the beauty of rural life. The farm shaped her vision and became her first photographic subject. She learned to see the details she photographs today.
Van Loon earned a BFA in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY and is a member of the New Hampshire Art Association, the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists.
Van Loon work has been shown in numerous group and solo shows.
Contact Carol Van Loon