Christine Saari- Honorary Curator  

After concentrating on photojournalism and fine arts photography for many years, I began a new body of work in 1993, which I have named A Family Album. This is an ongoing project, which currently consists of 35 works. It includes three-dimensional objects, often boxes or "shrines", two-dimensional wall pieces and one-of-a kind handmade books.

I incorporate family photographs, documents and artifacts to create these objects, so that memorabilia will be handed down as heirlooms, rather than go out in the trash. Each piece, many of them triptychs, deals with a particular subject, such as childhood memory, generational turnover, family celebration, loss and death, war, migration and more. Thus these art works, although based on my personal materials, have a universal quality and speak to people of many backgrounds.

Artistically, I use a variety of photographic techniques, especially various photo transfer methods. I frequently transfer images to fabric, which can then be applied to surfaces, embroidered and otherwise adorned. For my books I have made my own paper, used digital images, transparencies or hand coloring. It usually depends on the emotional quality of the subject matter what technique I choose. For instance for a book on my childhood friend Klari I used a transfer technique which produces hazy, dreamlike images.

A large part of this body of work was produced after I received a Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs ArtServe grant (1998/99). . The show has traveled to Detroit, where it was exhibited as part of the Detroit Focus 2000 Photographic Festival and to Minneapolis, where it was displayed at the Immigration Research Center at the University of Minneapolis during FinnFest 2002. Among others, the exhibit has been shown the NMU Art Museum Marquette, the Marquette Arts Center, the Finnish American Heritage Center in Hancock and most recently at the Holter Museum in Helena Montana, as part of a NEA grant funded exhibit series which included a two week artist residency.

I do commission work, using materials provided by clients. Depicted here is a wedding box for wedding memorabilia. Integrated in the box are transfers of the couple's wedding