2008 Resource Guide

Kim Case Joyce Tenneson and Richard Barnett

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A self-portrait of the artist.

Called a living legend by Photo District News, and named “One of the Ten Most Influential Women Photographers in the History of Photography” in an American Photo magazine poll, Joyce Tenneson is a powerful presence in person, like the reputation that precedes her.

Her home in Rockport, Maine, is the tenth home she has renovated during her forty-year career. But for someone who is fascinated by the process of internal and personal transformation, it should not be surprising that one of her many passions is transforming the external. “I love the creativity of taking a space and really making it a reflection of my own personality. I need to feel totally at one with my own surroundings.”

Sitting in the sunlight that filters in, Joyce sips tea looking out over a breathtaking scene of Rockport harbor. Nodding at a compliment on the ocean view, Joyce looks around her home and gives me a warm smile, pride in her home apparent in her peaceful countenance. “I’ve been very fortunate,” she says. “I say a prayer of gratitude every morning. I’m at a point in my life now where I can really appreciate being in touch with nature.”

A sunny deck with Rockport Harbor views is perfect for frequent entertaining. (Photo by Joyce Tenneson)

A Chinese bridal chest serves as a sideboard below one of Joyce’s large-scale photographs from her book Intimacy: The Sensual Essence of Flowers. (Photo by Richard Barnett)

Photo of Jodi Foster by Joyce Tenneson.

Good lighting is a photographer’s best friend and the main floor, containing the kitchen and primary entertaining space, receives plenty of sunlight through floor-to-ceiling windows that lead out to a deck and span the entire length of the house.

The entertaining space is filled with old comfortable furniture grouped together to encourage long conversations. Colorful accents in burgundy and blues add a festive flare and tie together her eclectic look. “I’m a shameless bargain shopper,” Joyce says with pride, and points out the Moroccan chandelier from her favorite New York City flea market on 42nd street and a Chinese wedding chest found at an overstock warehouse. Many classes and spontaneous parties have taken place in this sunny room, which in the summer opens up to the deck. Throughout the house are antique folk and Victorian dollhouses picked up for pennies on the dollar. “Maybe it’s because I’m an intimist,” Joyce says, “I love miniatures.”

The perfect setting for introspective meditation can be found on the fourth floor of her home, where the highlight is a lovely quiet space outfitted with wall-to-wall carpet and dominated by a Middle Eastern fireplace surround. The surround is painted in a wash of soft greens and blues, but at night is lit from behind and positively glows.

However, Joyce’s home is not just a place for entertaining and quiet reflections. A trip to the renovated basement reveals piles of photographs stacked on tables right to the small lawn outside the glass doors. Four decades in an exuberant career make for a lot of photographs. “I cleared this out of a storage facility in New York that I was paying $12,000 a year for,” Joyce explains with a wave at the piles. “We finally had them shipped up so that we could make selections for the book. Each print is unique. All pre-digital. Now we have to go through the process of digitizing them all.”
I am floored––as a professional in the field, I have spent hundreds of hours in darkrooms in my day, but the sheer number of prints here staggers me. I follow Joyce into her storage room where the sorting has begun, but the shelves are already nearly full.

Nearby is Joyce’s 800-square-foot studio complete with three computers, as many monitors, and a sushi bar. Okay, not a sushi bar really, but a massive printer which can produce museum-quality prints bigger than the area rug in your living room.

“This is where the work happens,” explains Joyce.

But of course it is hard work that has brought Joyce to this time and place. After forty years as a professional photographer, most noted for her celebrity portraits and over ten publications of highly acclaimed personal work, Joyce has just announced the publication of her latest effort:

Joyce Tenneson: A Life in Photography 1978–2008. This first retrospective includes previously unpublished personal portraits from her private collection, as well as drawing from previous publications such as Transformations, Light Warriors, and Wise Women.

In her work as instructor for both the Maine Media Workshops and the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, Joyce has attracted bright young people like bees to honey over the years. They swarm to her, drawn by her fame, and they stay for her compassionate critiques and encouraging support. She hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be young and searching for yourself—the opening pages of her new book are poignant self-portraits, a young woman moving through an empty landscape. “I did those during that lonely time we all have in our twenties, when you still aren’t certain who you are or where you are heading,” she comments.

A fascinating contrast are the confident self-portraits in the last chapter of the book––direct poses of herself that don’t shy away from sharing the realities of a woman of a certain age. “I really think the way people see aging is really going to change in the next decade,” says Joyce. “When I photographed Kitty Carlisle Clark who was still singing and dancing into her 90s before audiences, she said to me: ‘Tell all your young assistants to keep honing your skills, we are all still evolving.’”