West Chapter ConferenceSpeakers

Kathryn Mayo

Saturday, November 07, 2026 @ 1:30pm,

The Only Way Is Through: Reimagining Photographic Education

Kathryn Mayo is an artist and educator whose work explores storytelling, memory, identity, and human connection through photography, installation, and alternative photographic processes. Raised on a soybean and cattle farm in rural Alabama, her autobiographical practice draws on themes of girlhood, superstition and place, often incorporating sound, found objects, fabric, and historical processes. She earned a B.F.A. from the University of Alabama and an M.F.A. from Tulane University. Kathryn has taught photography at the collegiate level since 1999 and has been a faculty member at Cosumnes River College since 2007, where she teaches courses ranging from photographic history, darkroom and digital, alternative processes, view camera and studio lighting. Her work has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally and is held in several permanent collections. Her honors include the Alabama Artist Award, PhotoLucida Critical Mass Top 50 Artist, the Julia Margaret Cameron Award finalist and honorable mention awardee, among others.