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Beth Powning

Beth Powning is an accomplished writer and photographer who lives and works in Sussex, New Brunswick. She and her husband, Peter, moved to Canada twenty-five years ago leaving their home in Connecticut to find a new home in the countryside near the Bay of Fundy. They revitalized an abandoned house and farm, turning the site into studio and home. Beth’s work thrives in this environment, close to the natural world and seasonal changes.

Beth attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York where she received a degree in Creative Writing. She has developed over the years as a journalist and as a creative writer, publishing articles in national and regional magazines which cover a range of topics including the arts and artists, gardening, and ecology. In 1996 she published a book presenting her photography and writings; the focus is on “finding the spirit of home in nature.” Entitled “Seeds of Another Summer” it is a memoir of her relationship with the land and the story of how she and Peter made a home and nurtured a simpler life in the country. Some of the writing for this book was done during a two month residency at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Her photography is a poignant reminder of the beauty extant in the natural world. Beth has worked and studied with well known Canadian photographer, Freeman Patterson and exhibited her photographic work in numerous publications such as Camera Canada, Harrowsmith Country Life, and Atlantic Insight. Beth exhibits her photography regularly; recent showings include a group show at the Tatar/Alexander Gallery, Toronto in 1997, the Aitken Bicentennial Exhibition Centre 1996, and a three-person show with Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant in 1996 .

Beth says of her work, “what I work towards, in making photographs, is a moment that is like crossing a threshold into another world. It is a moment when I am pulled out of myself. What I see, and feel, is unexpected. If I make images, photographically, within this ‘moment of crossing the threshold,’ they are complete.”…I remember the words of Theodore Roetke, ‘I recover my tenderness by long looking.’ Recovery and discovery. I am returned; and then I can go ahead, if I’m lucky, and cross the threshold.”