Cheryl Walsh Bellville

Artist Statement

I've been a photographer for 35+ years now, always grateful for the plastic nature of the medium I chose as an art student at the University of Minnesota.

I raised my children free-lancing in every conceivable commercial application of the field. I taught, judged competitions, applied for grants, shot weddings and horse shows, annual reports, ads, and magazine articles. I took advantage of social occasions to make business contacts, and sat through a couple of endless weekends at art fairs. I mentored emerging artists coming into photography as young people and as middle-aged women who postponed the arts while they supported themselves in unrelated work. I've exhibited in fine-arts arenas and authored non-fiction books for children illustrated with my photography.

Throughout there was always an underlying agenda; peace and justice, sustainable agriculture, related ecological and political issues- issues too huge to confront head-on. I think I usually used the back door by presenting volatile issues, hopefully, in an inoffensive way.

Publishers Weekly picked up on this in a review of my first children's book, Roundup, when they said that the text was "..a tacit argument for the preservation of the unspoiled parts of the American West." It was a happy surprise to be acknowledged for the sub context in this way.