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  • Guy Mendes
  • Samantha Cole

When I first met Guy Mendes, he brought a few battered boxes of original photography to the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center here in Berea. He laid each portrait out, giving introductions to all his subjects. It was obvious that Mendes had a love for the people and land of Eastern Kentucky that he has spent much of his career photographing. I think the photos we have included in this issue demonstrate such love and respect.

Mendes, originally from New Orleans, came to the University of Kentucky in 1966. There he studied English with Wendell Berry, who introduced Mendes to photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Both these men continue to have a profound influence on his work. Of his art, Mendes says:

Since the late 1960s I have been drawn to and inspired by the land and people of the Kentucky Mountains. From the rumpled-quilt foothills to the sharp high ridges of the Cumberlands, the landscape is a true wonder that dates back 300 million years. It is a place where you can see remnants and renderings of ancient waters, a place covered by one of the most diverse forests on earth—a rare mix of northern and southern species. I have met people in this place who have light in their eyes and fire in their hearts. I have learned from their wisdom and humor, from their art and music. I have admired the love they have for their home and their determination to save it from those who would turn it into wasteland for short-term profit. I like to make portraits of people of strength and grace, and I like to make landscapes that reveal the primordial and elemental. For a city-dweller from the lowlands, the Southern Highlands offer plenty for the camera eye, and the heart's eye, to see.

For 35 years, Mendes worked as a writer, producer and director at Kentucky Educational Television. He still resides in Lexington with his wife and their two sons, where both the Ann Tower Gallery and Institute 193 display his photos. His next project, entitled The Watershed Chronicles, will feature more of the rich landscapes of Kentucky. [End Page 108]

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