Goodbody, also referred to as a passionate collector, philanthropist, and humanitarian, experimented with myriad photographic strategies and genres all through her late-blooming profession. Documentary and summary images, digital collage, and Holga plastic digicam photographs, and the mysterious course of of mordançage are among the many many approaches she embraced in her follow.
Born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1936, Goodbody took up images later in life, following a profession in public relations (spearheading former United States Secretary of State Edmund Muskie’s presidential marketing campaign led her to Maine within the early Nineteen Seventies). A lifelong picture aficionado, she enrolled in a darkroom course on the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport upon turning 50. As a part of a bunch of girls referred to as the Rockport Six, Goodbody helped the college obtain accreditation to grant Masters of High quality Artwork levels and grow to be the distinguished Maine Media Workshops and School.
Barbara Goodbody, “Sunrise 1” (2009), inkjet print
The daughter of a naval officer, she was accustomed to touring and beloved immersing herself in different cultures. Her earliest images displays a documentary type, recording folks and locations she encountered. However as she dove deeper into her medium, Goodbody experimented with different processes; in Paris, for instance, she realized the mordançage course of, an alternate method pioneered by Jean-Pierre Sudre within the Nineteen Sixties that entails chemically manipulating a print to attain a surreal, haunting impact. Her endgame was discovering strategies to elicit one thing extra profound about her topics than that which an easy picture might talk.
A pupil of comparative religions, Goodbody sought to convey the idea of “Indra’s net” — a Vedic scriptural metaphor for the interpenetration of all issues — by abstracting gentle grids that implied an infinity of connection coursing via the universe. She exploited the low-fidelity blurring and lightweight leaks of a Holga plastic digicam to seize the light glory of Havana, and mordançage allowed her to elevate emulsions from photographs of flowers, enhancing their sense of ephemeral magnificence by making them look already partially gone.
Even a dawn was by no means merely a dawn. Of Goodbody’s Salutations to the Daybreak (2009) sequence, shot in Eire in the course of the winter solstice, College of Texas professor of images Brenton Hamilton stated in a 2019 essay that in these photographs she “shows us light as a source of awakening.”
Barbara Goodbody, “Indra’s Net 1” (2012), inkjet print
Goodbody was additionally a prolific collector of images, portray, ornamental and ritualistic objects from Indigenous cultures and extra. She donated her personal works and components of her collections to many museums nationwide. However her fervid perception in world peace and alternative for all additionally impelled her into lively involvement and funding of many causes, together with co-founding the Massive Brothers/Massive Sisters of Maine, supporting the student-led Nobel-winning group PeaceJam and the Nationwide Wildlife Federation, jumpstarting the Heart for Compassion on the College of Southern Maine, and dealing with People Arts Rajasthan and the Tibetan House College, amongst many others.
“Barbara’s compassionate worldview catalyzed Maine’s cultural infrastructure and shaped its landscape,” Denise Froehlich, director of the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, which Goodbody additionally helped discovered, advised Hyperallergic. “Her institutional leadership and philanthropic initiatives established foundational frameworks that continue to influence the state’s artistic and sociocultural trajectory.”
Goodbody is survived by her three kids, Bridget, Robert, and Jim Goodbody; and 4 grandchildren, Ben, Abigail, Marcus, and Hannah.
