Art — Patti Matthis

Local photographer’s travels open a new door

Nashua resident Patti Matthis, a fine art photographer, recently received an Excellence Award from the New England Camera Club for her shot of Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine. The photo was selected from over 1200 entries and was presented a New England Camera Club Council meeting at U Mass in Amherst in July.

Matthis is a member of both the Nashua Camera Club and Nashua Area Artists Association, in addition to the New England Camera Club. The award was a major affirmation of her lifelong passion for photography—for now, her “job on the side.”

“Working in the hi-tech industry, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to travel around the country for business and pleasure over the last several years,” Matthis said. “My natural curiosity about the changing geography and local cultural treasures around the country prompted me to capture these experiences to share with family and friends back home.”

Matthis attributes her talent for photography to a variety of sources.

“I have artists and architects in the family who equipped me with a good eye for composition and color,” she said. “One of my dad’s friends used to come over to the house and show his slides of flowers, nature, animals, and sunsets and that made a very big impression on me as a child.”

She also finds inspiration in more established artists.

“I love the French Impressionists, Georgia O’Keefe’s work, Alfred Steiglitz, Ansel Adams, and Lotte Jocobi’s black-and-white photography.”

The majority of Matthis’s photographs to date have been taken during her travels in New England, New Mexico, Florida, California and the Caribbean. In fact, her career as a working artist began with the fateful decision to host a slide show featuring her travel photos one night for some friends.

“I had amassed many slides over the 90’s and culled them out one night  - a sort of ‘best of the best,’ and showed my friends,” Matthis said. “With their encouragement, I took them into the Nashua Public Library to their media manager, who said he would like to give me a show.”

After that, Matthis said, she was hooked. Now, she had a new reason to travel—to take more pictures.

“Each picture conjures up memories of the day it was taken and the serendipitous adventures of that particular trip,” she said. “Nature is my passion, and photography gives me a good excuse to spend time outdoors and in my flower garden and to be intimately in touch with nature. I hike, bike, kayak and garden. My camera is never far away. “

Since her debut show at the Nashua Public Library, Matthis has participated in exhibits at the Hollis Public Library, the East Pearl Street Gallery, the 9/11 Aftermath Exhibit at the Nashua Public Library, Chandler Art Show, Chimera Fine Art Photography Gallery, Beaver Brook and the Parish Center for the Arts, Greeley Park Art Show and Chelmsford and Andover, Mass. art shows.

She was a featured artist for the Month of July in Rivier Today, an alumni publication of Rivier College, and currently has her photographs and greeting cards displayed in the East Pearl Art Gallery.

You can see samples of Patti Matthis’s work on her website: http://www.PattiMatthisPhotography.com.  She can be contacted at 889-7195 or e-mail: peapetal@aol.com.

—Michelle Saturley