Jean Davis Olecki

A Little About Me
A former career girl from the suburbs of Boston, now a wife and mother of five living in the South, I have been taking photographs since I was in High School. I was given a camera - a really bad camera - as a gift but I was addicted and so began documenting my entire life with photos of the snapshot variety. A few years ago I received a new camera from my husband and was hooked again. Only this time I am taking the kind of photos I've always wanted to take but never had the time for. I have never received any formal training, but instead shoot what I like. I don't know th...

A Little About Me
A former career girl from the suburbs of Boston, now a wife and mother of five living in the South, I have been taking photographs since I was in High School. I was given a camera - a really bad camera - as a gift but I was addicted and so began documenting my entire life with photos of the snapshot variety. A few years ago I received a new camera from my husband and was hooked again. Only this time I am taking the kind of photos I've always wanted to take but never had the time for. I have never received any formal training, but instead shoot what I like. I don't know the rules so I don't know if I am breaking them or not but I think that gives my photography a different perspective. I have been a featured artist on IBXarts.org and my work is also shown at the Chowan Arts Gallery in Edenton, NC as well as being viewable on Flickr and ImageKind. My dream is to turn our century old Feed & Grain Store into a Gallery where I can show my own work as well as that of other local artists.

Artist Statement
As I mentioned, I am a transplant to the Inner Banks of North Carolina and from the beginning have been amazed at the beauty of the area: our rich farmland, quaint small towns, and the beautiful coast. What fascinates me the most would be the abandoned, endangered, and disappearing architecture of these remote rural areas. I have developed a sort of reverence for the decaying homes, farms, and buildings you find here. Something one just doesn't find growing up in the suburbs. I can't help but imagine the back-story, the history of these places - who lived there, worked there, died there - and I hope my work makes someone viewing it imagine what these structures were like as well, bringing back to life these ghosts, reminders of a slower gentler time. If you can you see or feel the woman working in that open window, the men in the fields, the child rolling the hoop down the dirt lane - then I have accomplished what I set out to do. To preserve the memory of these lost and forgotten treasures and to nurture an appreciation of this area for those unacquainted with my new found home.