Biography
Before pursuing a career in photography, Janet Pritchard worked as an outdoor education instructor and spent her youth traveling between the Northeast and Rocky Mountain West. These early experiences led to an awareness of regional differences within the US, and she describes herself as geographically bilingual. Her methodology, described as historical empathy, relies on history, material culture, and ecology to guide her depictions of landscapes as expressions of time and place, situating landscape photography at the intersection of nature and culture.
In her current project, The Wild Heart of New England: The Connecticut River & Watershed, she photographs the riverscapes as a complex interconnected system. She relies on history and science for greater understanding. Her book More than Scenery: Yellowstone, an American Love Story, which views the world's first national park through the lenses of nature, culture, and history, is due in October from George F. Thompson Publishing.
Honors and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship; Connecticut Office of the Arts Artist Fellowships; American Antiquarian Society Jay and Deborah Last Fellowships; National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar, Smith Center for Cartography, Newberry Library; Artist-in-Residencies at Ucross Foundation, Jentel Foundation, Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University, Millay Foundation, and the Vindolanda Trust; UConn awards include Research Excellence Program, School of Fine Arts Research Grant, and a Humanities Institute Fellowship. Her exhibition venues include Philadelphia Museum of Art; RISD Museum, Providence; Fruitlands and New Bedford Art Museums, Massachusetts; Fraction Magazine; FlakPhoto; Lenscratch; International Center for Photography, New York; Martha Schneider Gallery, Chicago; Photographic Resource Center, Boston; and the SPE sponsored National Trust for Historic Preservation traveling exhibition America's Uncommon Places.
Pritchard is a Professor, Area Coordinator, Graduate Advisor in Photography, and an Affiliated Faculty Member of the Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering and the Institute of the Environment at the University of Connecticut. She has taught in various visiting and contingent capacities at Tyler School of Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Colorado (Boulder & Denver), and the University of New Mexico. Pritchard received her BA in art history, classics, and philosophy from the University of Colorado and her MA and MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico.
Statement
My relationship with SPE has varied. I joined as an undergraduate, then worked as paid staff through graduate school and beyond, 1986–1992, including Director of Publications, Managing Editor of exposure, oversight of the conference trade show, and finishing as Co-Executive Director during the national conference in Silver Spring, Md. After that, I lost much of the 1990s to raising young children while teaching in contingent capacities. Since then, I have attended and presented at national and chapter conferences, regularly reviewed student portfolios, and currently serve on Northeast Chapter Board.
I am willing and interested in sharing the burden of a working board necessitated by SPE's recently reinvented Executive-Directorless formation. I see this as an essential step in maintaining economic sustainability for the organization and applaud the board members responsible for this transition during a challenging time. SPE has a history of reinventing itself, and as a legacy member, I have a long view of these changes and believe it is a strength in the organization. I think this process of reinvention is vital; this seemingly metamorphic response to cultural, economic, and social stresses that push and pull the organization to change its form and function as a reflection of changing times across multiple generations of photographers can be healthy. I have experience in communication and leadership with an interest in governance.
As an artist, I am proud of my career, doing what I believe fits my nature and still achieving validation. I have received numerous fellowships and artist residencies, notably a 2019 Guggenheim. Along the way, I developed a cross-disciplinary working methodology. My first book, More than Scenery: Yellowstone, an American Love Story, will be available this fall, while my second book, The Wild Heart of New England: The Connecticut River & Watershed, is under development.
As an educator, I am proud of the span of my career and the multiple modalities of teaching situations I have engaged. I worked as a graduate instructor at UNM and as a Visiting Asst. Prof. at the University of Colorado, Boulder, the following year. I taught adjunct at Metropolitan State College and the University of Colorado, Denver, before landing a non-tenure track position there as an Asst. Prof. We moved to Philadelphia, where I was a non-tenure track Asst. Prof at Tyler School of Art while an adjunct at Bucks Country Community College. In 2001, we moved to the Univ. of Connecticut, where I engaged in the tenure process and taught for several summers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
I work collaboratively to develop innovative curricula and programs for undergraduate and graduate students while working hard to support students through advising and mentoring. I also work collaboratively as an artist and member of the Hadrian's Wall Working Group: http://www.like-a-whisper.com/. I hope to bring my wealth of experience and long-sighted view of SPE to the table of the board and the membership at large.
