“All of the animals are things that I would encounter all the time. The otter I’ve been chased by, turtles I used to help cross the street,” said Courtney Cecil `26 as she sat under a collection of photography in her Edith Renfrow Smith `37 Gallery show, titled “Welcome to the Woods.”
Growing up in the northern woods of Wisconsin, Cecil said the natural world was a common presence in her life. Iowa, she realized, lacks a lot of the natural scenery she found in her everyday life at home. “I wanted to bring something from my home here, to show the things that were very typical,” she said.
The most immediate piece hanging on the wall by the entrance is a sculpted deer head, affectionately named “Melvin” by Cecil. The deer sits next to a large print of a log cabin. Cecil described how the wall is meant to evoke the feeling of a typical rustic log cabin, which can be found across northern Wisconsin.
“There were lots of log cabins back home, and then almost every single one had a deer head mount inside, because there wasn’t a lot to do back home. So most people went hunting,” she said.
Adjacent to the print of the log cabin hangs several photographs of waterfront scenes, each filled with instances of fishing, waterfowl or simply the serene lakefronts of Wisconsin.
“We had really beautiful, very clear lakes. You could be where it was four feet deep, and you could see the bottom,” said Cecil. “That center photo is actually the lake that I grew up on, and the other ones are just all different lakes that are in Wisconsin, but that was the one that I was on every day.”
Despite primarily featuring scenes of nature, Cecil’s work is significantly influenced by the shared love of the outdoors between her and her family. “A lot of them are inspired by my family. There’s fishing photos, because I grew up fishing, blue herons are my grandma’s favorite bird. Eagles were my grandpa’s favorite bird. So everything is kind of just bits of my childhood,” she said.
The collection is seen through a multitude of mediums, including paintings, sculpture work and photography. “I like to try out every sort of art that I possibly can,” she said. “I wanted to kind of just throw in some variety.”
Yet the most dominant medium is film photography. “I’ve always loved photography, but I had never experienced a film camera and actually developing my own film,” she said. It was in the summer of 2024 that Cecil had the opportunity to conduct a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) involving film photography, where she learned how to use film cameras and develop her own film.
“When I went back home to Wisconsin, I took a lot of photos there. I developed all of it here in the studio. I was in the studio all the time, I practically lived there,” she said. The more present experience of shooting film photography was a crucial aspect when crafting much of her nature photography, and how “we kind of slow down and pay attention to more details.”
“Welcome to the Woods” will be on display in the Smith Gallery until Nov. 15.
