I donate 50 percent of all proceeds from online sales of my prints to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a Canadian organization that helps to ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa by funding community-level projects that provide care and support to women, orphans, grandmothers and people living with AIDS.
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I picked up photography in 1998 when I dropped out of school for a year and bought an old, second-hand Yashica FX2. For a few years my camera and I were inseparable, but after I graduated with an English degree and started working full-time, it fell away. When my son was born in 2006, I again saw photographs everywhere. I started capturing some with an actual camera, and haven’t stopped since.
My life as a mother is integral to my photography, even when it isn’t explicitly the subject of my photos. During my son’s infancy, the stroller was one of the few places he would sleep that wasn’t my arms; the walks I took with my camera allowed me space for both introspection and engagement with the outside world, in a way that the physical demands of mothering wouldn’t otherwise allow.
I think photographs should make you wonder.
~ Kate Wilhelm
Guelph, Ontario
Email me at kate(at)peripheralvision(dot)ca
Curated group shows
Mother/mother-, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City.
December 2009
still standing, Alma Gallery, Guelph, Ontario.
April-May 2009
Publications
The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art. Ed. by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein, Demeter Press, Fall 2010.
“Lunenburg Invasion” Deep Sleep Magazine, Issue 2