The Writer’s Center is pleased to present “You Don’t Know Me,” a solo exhibition of photographs and stories by DC photographer Beatrice Hamblett, on display in the Center’s Joram Piatigorsky Gallery March 6-April 18.

FREE & open to the public. Light refreshments provided.

“You Don’t Know Me” introduces viewers to a cross-section of people—fisherman, hunters, church-goers, people living in small towns and “hollers”—who reflect the spirit of Appalachia. With this five-year project, Hamblett hopes to bridge the gap between urban and rural people at a time when division runs deep throughout the US. “We share much in common as Americans,” says Hamblett. “Can we find common ground?”

Over the years, Hamblett has traveled repeatedly through remote areas of Greece, the Balkans and Appalachia digging deep to reveal the authenticity of her subjects most often people living within rural or traditional societies. She successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign to produce her book: Daily Bread: Stories from Rural Greece a collection of photographs and stories culled from 10 years of road trips through Greece. The Embassy of Greece in Washington, DC and the Greek Consulate in New York City have exhibited her photographs, as well as numerous galleries and exhibition spaces in both the US and Greece over the past 25 years. She is the recipient of three Artist Fellowship Grants from Washington DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities (CAH) 2023–2025, and her photographs have been acquired by the Art Bank Collection of CAH. She has studied extensively with John Sexton, protégé of Ansel Adams, and her fine art prints reflect the aesthetic and methodology of the school of the American West photographers. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Non-fiction Writing from Columbia University, New York, NY. When not shooting film or writing stories, she likes to ride her motorbike on mountain roads in Skopelos, Greece where she lives during the summer months.

Visitors will have the opportunity to meet the artist during the opening reception and artist talk where she will discuss her creative process and inspirations.

Related Programming: Artist Talk on March 27, 6:30-8:30pm »

Artist Statement

Why I Photograph Photography suits the diverse sides of my nature. With my camera slung around my neck, I become an extrovert. I feel emboldened as I go places and worlds open to me. I enjoy connections with people I never dreamed of knowing. I am an analog photographer, processing my own film and making prints in my darkroom.

It is a quiet, unhurried process that encourages the more private side of me. In the dark, I ponder images as they appear in the developer, evaluate them while still wet. I am truly enamored with the range of grey scale that black-and-white photography offers. These are the “colors” of my palette and I am in love with the subtleties this offers my work.

Darkroom work involves manual labor and I like working with my hands— from shooting film to final print. I like to think that the method of my work reflects the people I choose to photograph: people living in rural societies and the traditions woven into their daily lives. People from Appalachia, the Balkans, the Roma (gypsies) in Greece.

A Hasselblad is my “go-to” camera these days, a mechanical beast with a shutter that makes a loud “clunk” when released and a film advancer that winds up like a fishing rod. As I photograph, I write stories. The two art forms are easy partners. My stories include portraits of people and candid journal accounts of my days in quest of a better understanding of my subjects and the worlds they live in.