Frimmel Smith and Joe Smith

For the month of October, photographers Joe Smith and Frimmel Smith will be showcasing their work. Check out their artist statements below, and make sure to come to the artist opening from 4:30 to 5:30 on October 1st.

Frimmel Smith

Frimmel is a self-described storyteller.
She studied photography at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC while working as the Director of Honors and Awards for the American Institute of Architects. A decade later, after moving to Geneva, Switzerland, her avocation became her vocation. Over the next 10 years, Frimmel produced and authored three photo-documentaries focused on architectural subjects worldwide. Two of these projects remain on display in museums in Indiana and Wisconsin.
Frimmel entered the digital era in 2006 as a volunteer to photograph a clean water project in
South Africa for the Steve and Jean Case Foundation. Afterwards, the foundation sent her
images to the White House, and First Lady Laura Bush chose them to accompany her keynote
address to the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative. Subsequently they brought in $16 million dollars
in donations to the foundation. And the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) selected one image
for their Humanitarian Photography Collection.
Fast forward another decade and Frimmel refocused, this time on nature. In November of 2016, she and her husband Gary traveled to the Haines, Alaska Bald Eagle Festival where more than 2000 Eagles fished for the remaining salmon of the season. Realizing the Canon Rebel wasn’t the proper gear to capture these majestic birds, she immediately purchased a new kit to photograph birds.

Joe Smith

My photographic sensibilities come from the beautiful and spacious Southwest. Now in Maine I am working from this in-between place in my photography as I fall in love with a new and totally different landscape. Lately, I am looking to capture the built environment as it sits, compliments, or in some cases intrudes, in the natural landscape. I prefer to work in monochrome but I consider myself a photographic omnivore, equally attracted to the minimalism of an empty beach as to filling the frame with details of an abandoned mill. There are no deep philosophical meanings behind my images, they are just what I found interesting at the moment when the light was right.
It’s been over four years now that I’ve explored my new home and it is a place of contrasts and a place asking that I see differently.
I have spent most of my life in San Diego, CA after being stationed there in the Navy. A bit over four years ago I moved to Maine with my partner, Katherine and have settled comfortably in North Berwick. Katherine and I share our life with four daughters and two granddaughters.
I have been an enthusiastic, amateur photographer for over 15 years now, mostly landscapes. I am fully self-taught, still making mistakes, and still learning.