"Creativity takes courage." Henri Matisse
ABOUT ME
Stories are everywhere. Ordinary people do extraordinary things, and no one notices. We accumulate artifacts because we want to remember something or someone important. We travel to places to experience our own and the lives of others. Something catches my attention--a light, a shadow, a color or a shape. These are my cues. I photograph because images capture the moments, and I write because words memorialize the stories, and without either, these people, places and objects will otherwise disappear forever. Using my own and other's history, the footsteps into which I travel, the things left behind, I tell stories.
"As an artist specializing in photographic and digital art, and a writer of history and bio-fiction, family history serves as an inspiration for storytelling. Here, I showcase and share with you my artistic journey. "
- Jae Hodges
About Me.
I am Jae Hodges, artist, author, photographer, genealogist and traveler based currently in Central Florida. I list each of these elements because I can hardly express myself in one without also tapping into another. Genealogy was a gift given to me by my grandfather, love of travel a gift from my grandmother, and the number of stories available to me from both is endless. If I’m to capture and record as many of them as I can, then I have to use all the tools of photography, writing and art available to me to do it. I started photographing in Virginia in 2007, I published my first book in Alabama in 2020, and it took an artist’s and writer’s residency in France in 2024 to show me that digital art is only just another exciting path to storytelling.
Education
My life before art was a world of processes and analytics, precision and rules. I left that world and have set out, uneducated but inspired, untrained but willing to explore. In both my writing and my art I am largely self-taught.
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Digital photography
Digital art
Skills
Nearly everything I write is based in family lore–telling the extraordinary stories of ordinary people who will otherwise be lost to history. My art, like my writing, is an attempt to capture and tell a story–perhaps it is only a single moment, or the memory of place and time, or perhaps I’m using images to extract the autobiography of a house. As time is an important factor of my photographic images, and digital art, I use both my camera and computer to explore multiple exposures, old papers, and yes, even clever tricks to simulate context.
Exhibitions/ Collaborations
October 2022 – Photography Contributor and Editor of Photo Gems of Central Florida published by the Crystal River Photoshare Group
September 2023 – Edited and Co-Published Memories of Growing Up in Floral City and Citrus County by Robert Metz for the Floral City (Florida) Heritage Museum (available on Amazon.com)
October 2023 – Photography Contributor and Editor of Echoes of Florida published by the Crystal River Photoshare Group
March 2024 – International Artists and Writers Residence, Château d’Orquevaux, Permanent Collection
April 2024 – Dreams and Nightmares Exhibit, The Boomer Gallery, London
May 2024 – The Dark Side Exhibit, The Boomer Gallery, London
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Jun-Jul 2024 -- Becoming: The Feminist Image, Columbia, SC
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September 2024 -- Photo of Scarlet Macaw "Red" awarded Third place in photo exhibit at Art Center of Citrus County
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September 2024 -- "The Shearing Shed" and "The Chapel of St. Helen" published in the Fall 2024 issue of Superpresent magazine
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COMING SOON! Feb 2025 -- Artist in Residence, Guiniguada, La Angostura, Gran Canaria, Spain
