About this Event
June 9 | In-Store | 6:00 PM
Jane Fulton Alt, Still Life
We are lucky to have Jane Fulton Alt living among us here in Evanston, and so happy to host her hometown event for (MW Editions). The images in this book are stunning, and the story behind them touches the heart, along with moving essays by James Baraz, Douglas Tallamy, and W. M. Hunt. Jane will be in conversation with editor Alexa Dilworth and will sign books following the event.
Doors and minibar open at 5:30PM
Getting here: We are located at 1620 Orrington Avenue, in downtown Evanston, just one block east of the Davis Street Metra and CTA public transit stops. There is metered street parking as well as numerous parking garages nearby.
^^^^
“In Still Life, we witness how sorrow can give birth to beauty and how loss can lead to a deeper connection with life.”
—James Baraz
by presents forty-five photographs of a native garden and the flowers and plants that inhabit it. Following the unexpected death of her husband, Howard, Alt assumed responsibility for the nascent ecosystem he had planted in response to his growing concern over climate change. What began as daily stewardship gradually became a source of creative focus and sustenance amid mourning.
“I was never a gardener,” writes Alt, a statement that marks her abrupt turn toward caring for a landscape still in formation and establishes the unfamiliar ground from which the book unfolds. If the garden represents new terrain, the camera remains constant. “A potent combination in adjusting to this new life.” Together, the photographs and accompanying texts form a body of work in which personal loss finds expression through close attention to the living world.
was born in Chicago in 1951 and began exploring the visual arts while pursuing a career as a clinical social worker. Her award-winning photography explores the universality of the human condition and the non-material world. Alt received a BA from the University of Michigan and an MA from the University of Chicago. She studied at the Evanston Art Center, as well as at Columbia College and the Art Institute of Chicago. Alt is the author of Look and Leave: Photographs and Stories from New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward (2009) and The Burn (2013). Her portfolio “Crude Awakening” appeared in publications worldwide.
Alexa Dilworth, an independent editor and writer based in Durham, North Carolina, was the publishing and awards director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for more than twenty years. Currently a senior editor for Aperture’s Vision & Justice book series and text editor for their Photography Workshop series, she has edited over seventy photo books, including most recently, John Baer: The Extraordinary Ordinary (John Baer Archive, 2026), Larry Fink: Hands On/A Passionate Life of Looking (powerhouse Books, 2025), and Pictures for Charis by Kelli Connell (Aperture, 2024). Her writing has appeared in Lenscratch, the PhotoBook Review, the Oxford American, and numerous exhibition catalogs and photography monographs. Dilworth has a BA and an MA from the University of Florida and an MFA in creative writing (poetry) from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Bookends & Beginnings, 1620 Orrington Avenue, Evanston, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 40.00
