Introducing Photographer Susan Etole

© Susan Etole 

Used With Permission

I've been privileged to do a series of features on The High Calling's contributing artists. Tomorrow you'll find at THC's site my interview with Minnesota photographer Susan Etole, who took some time away from the window through which she points her camera daily to talk with me via e-mail.

Content to let her camera speak for her — and it does, to marvelous effect — Susan tends to move quietly through our world. Still, while doing some background research to prepare my questions for Susan, I was intent to uncover, at least a little, the person behind the equipment. Browsing Susan's popular blog, Just a moment . . . , I opened her profile to dig a little deeper. Here's some of what I found:

Maureen Doallas: Susan, among interests you list intriguingly in your profile are dreams. Would you elaborate?

Susan Etole: I believe that God continues to speak through dreams. Learning to interpret those dreams in a scriptural way is of paramount importance in accurately understanding the guidance He is giving us. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I enjoy photography so much. It's a way of seeing that carries over into what we consider the supernatural.

© Susan Etole

Used With Permission

MD: You cite among your favorite books "my mother's poetry books from the 1930s". I'm fascinated to know more, particularly because the time referenced was the Great Depression. How does your mother's poetry help you understand your background, where you live, and how you have decided to live your life?

SE: My mother began teaching at a very young age when a college degree was not a requirement. She always taught the elementary grades, so the majority of her poetry books were geared to that age level. She had a collection of poetry books, textbooks regarding the teaching of poetry, and scrapbooks in which she collected poems and sayings that caught her eye — a reminder of how unavailable information was then compared to how extraordinarily available information is now. Her love for the childlike poems she taught her pupils, and could still recite when she was 90, is an example to me of how much joy there is in the simple. . . in nature. . . in wind and swings and shadows. Both she and my father were strong examples of what it meant to live with hardship and persevere and know joy in the persevering. You don't give up just because life gets difficult; whining is not an option.

MD: Do you have a favorite poem of your mother's?

SE: She used to recite one called "October's Bright Blue Weather", which spoke of her love for all things autumn, which is my favorite season. Her eyes would get a twinkle as she would make plans for the new school year and her pupils.

I hope you've enjoyed these brief out-takes from my conversation with Susan. Please join me tomorrow at The High Calling, where Susan talks about what she photographs, and why, and what it has meant to her to bring her work before the public's eye. Look for "She's Got Miksang: Interview With Photographer Susan Etole".

© Susan Etole

Used With Permission