As many of you you know, I have written a series of profiles on artists. A few former students, a couple of studio teaching assistants, a colleague or two. All are special but this one is very close for me personally as it is of an almost life-long friend and colleague: Jane Tuckerman. If you don't know her work, hang on as this will take you around the world and back home again.

Jane and I first met in graduate school at the RI School of Design in the 70's. Later we both taught at the NE School of Photography (NESOP)together in Boston, then she was hired to head the program in photography at the Carpenter Center at Harvard University for many years and and asked me to teach there too. After thirteen years at Harvard we both moved on, Jane to teach at the Art Institute of Boston and by this time I had been running the Photo Program at Northeastern for several years.

Jane photographs, paints, makes sculptures and a great deal else.

These are from recent work concerned with rituals as, she says, "trying to better understand the meaning of religious devotion." She has always been interested in ritual, devotion and ceremony in her work.

As these are so long and thin, you might find them easier to see by clicking on them to see them larger.

Jane travels a great deal to make her pictures and she, somewhat like the photographer Linda Connor, seems to always seek to find the significance of a place, to imbue it with a deeper meaning or perhaps more accurately to find it's deeper meaning.

I regard Jane as an unsung hero (or heroine) in that, while she is very active creatively and has explored many paths of expression in her career as an artist, showing, publishing and marketing her work has been, I assume, of secondary importance. What I am trying to say here is that the making is the thing, not the showing or publishing. To someone like Jane, who has a very full personal life as well as a career as a photography teacher, there isn't much other time.

Recognizing that the above images are difficult to see in a blog like this I asked Jane to provide me with some others:

This above comes from Benares in India and is more typical of Jane's earlier work which was in black and white infrared.

Since then, she has, as always, moved on.

To dolls. This involves finding them, purchasing them and photographing them.This one is titled : Charlie with Bullet Hole.

This one: "Dancer". The doll pictures are from about 2008.

This one is titled: "Mary and Bettina".

Jane will retire from teaching soon. She's been at the Art Institute of Boston for many years. I am looking forward to seeing what she does when she isn't so invested in teaching. Jane's work is remarkable, just as she is. In the next few years we have much to look forward to. I can't wait.

Jane's website is here