These photographs are static records of vision and time in flux. My current work uses pinhole photography to create images that are both disorientating and selectively clear.

Using a round, multiple-hole camera, I am able to record variations in intensity, viewpoint, distortion, and overlap. I set up the camera, open the shutter, and wait. Light reflects, the photo paper responds, and I close the shutter. After processing, I select negatives, adjust the images, and print. I am drawn into this cycle of relinquished control and reflective design.

Within visual and mental excess, the images and process contain fragments of clarity and focus. Each photograph moves me to create the next.

Artist Donna J.P. Cuyler grew up in Whitewater and currently resides in Milwaukee. She works with calotypes and pinhole photography and creates finished positive prints using contemporary digital media. Cuyler creates static visions that reframe the flux of life.

Cuyler has been an art educator for the past 17 years and received her MA from the University of Cardinal Stritch, Milwaukee. Among her awards includes a grant from the National Education Association to study printmaking, a Fulbright Memorial Fund award to study Japanese culture, and a summer residency at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

For the past 8 years, her focus has been working with pinhole images. To create her images, Cuyler uses a pinhole camera – a round tin with multiple holes. The resulting pinhole image is a 360-degree view. In the center of the camera is a cylinder support to which photographic paper is attached. Since the multiple holes focus light onto a curved surface of the inner support of the camera, the images don’t lay flat as they distort, stretch, change focal length, and overlap with other sections and views. She inverts the paper negatives into positive images and creates the final prints. To create variations of tone, when working with black and white negatives and the computer, some images may be taken into Duotone. Color pictures are recorded on color paper negatives. No spot coloring is digitally added. There is a minimal involvement of digital adjustment. The final prints are printed on Enhanced Matt or Smooth Fine Art Paper on an Epson inkjet printer.

Donna Cuyler will be a guest artist at Hohf Piano Workshop.