Before Katrina

This photos in this exhibit were taken seven months before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Through photographs of a cross section of the city’s neighborhoods. Her photos wonderfully capture lushness as it descends over the communities. We see personal pride in well maintained lawns and homes, the unassuming ordinariness of life enclosed by a friendly spirit of southern hospitality and simple pleasures. It gives tribute to the heroic people of New Orleans and the places which existed and hopefully will be restored. For the past 20 years, Nomi Waksberg has been taking pictures dealing with the concept of place as portrait. She has catalogued over 25,000 images and within the past four years has been editing and sorting these pictures into topic specific portfolios for presentation. “Jewels Before Katrina” is part of this portfolio project. Ms. Waksberg has taught at the College of New Jersey and participated in various professional panel presentations and discussions. She is the recipient of New Jersey Council of the Arts Grants, NEA Project Grant for “Three on Three”and the Bea Camhi Award, Hudson River Museum of Art, NY. She has been creating work in her New Jersey studio since receiving an MFA degree from Rutgers University in 1972. Prior studies included postgraduate courses at the Maryland Institute of Art and studies at the Ohio State University, where she completed her BFA degree with honors and studied with printmaker Sidney Chafetz. Ms. Waksberg was born in post war Dresden, Germany. She and her family lived in over 26 different places in the first 12 years of her life. It is no doubt because of this, that a special sensitivity to the uniqueness of place and the portrait it could convey has become important themes in Ms.Waksberg’s work.