IVY BIGBEE

"Like catching fireflies in a jar," notes WIPI charter member IVY BIGBEE of Centreville, VA, when discussing the euphoria she experienced when creating her acclaimed series, "Portraits from the Cirque du Soleil" (featured photos above).

The Northern VA-based photographer-writer-poet encountered, then joined vigorously-organized Women in Photography International in 2005

"Finding WIPI led to what personally unfolded as a life-changing decade, to date one that proved to be profoundly enriching," she adds. Not only does WIPI support its talent, taking full advantage of social media, the emphasis on scholarship and career-enhancing activities, the group promotes its members within any number of photography sectors. I hope my work will be of interest to other members, much as their photographs astonish me."

Having taught photography at the university where she herself studied, harnessing her 1994 BA degree (Summa cum laude and University Honors) with majors in photography and literature from University of North Florida, through commissions, Bigbee became visible on professional photography's map, making her way into news agencies and publications' data bases even before she finished college. Returning to her Alma mater in 1995 as an adjunct instructor for the College of Arts and Science, Bigbee also lectured beyond academe while serving as Curator of Art for the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, Jacksonville, FL; the privately-held North Florida Karpeles belongs to an association of sister-institutions founded by Santa Barbara philanthropist, David Karpeles. During Bigbee's Karpeles years, she organized art exhibitions of emerging and established artists, including one by her UNF photography students, who not only installed and showed their work in the Greek Revival, temple-like structure, but were tasked with the responsibilities of all aspects for exhibit planning.

Bigbee's award-winning, multi-sector photography appears internationally and is exhibited nationally across the media spectrum, from print and Internet to broadcast media. In one setting, for example, for "The Strange Obsession of Dr. Carl von Cosel," Bigbee's toned and hand-colored silver gelatin prints of the criminal case were licensed for HBO's "Autopsy 6: Secrets of the Dead" (1999), hosted by Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for New York City. Additionally, Bigbee's work has included the application of her hand-colored, silver gelatin prints for use on Japanese pharmaceutical packaging. A related image was reproduced on a Spanish trade book jacket of an Olivia Goldsmith novel, Parsarela de Odios (Fashionably Late).

Having written her first poem at age six, decades later, she took classes with UNF's Dr.William Slaughter, also a poet. Bigbee is the author of Optical Allusions: an Art Photographer’s Poems (Reddi-Arts Books in the House, Jacksonville, 1997). Presently, the grant-sponsored, self-illustrated, non-fiction book, whose poems are grouped in photography-themed chapters, is undergoing revision for Edition Three, for the purpose of refining the color photo illustrations by using updated imaging software, drawing on experience gained through exhibitions, workshops and her "prolific" photography, as described by Silvershotz editor-publisher, Clive Waring-Flood in the lush quarterly's final analog issue spotlighting WIPI and the work of its charter members.

Also in 1997, Bigbee was commissioned by Art Calendar magazine to author the self-illustrated Art Calendar Monograph, Successful Slides: Photographing Your Artwork. From 1993 to date, Bigbee's photography and writing credits include feature stories, packages, poems and book reviews that appear in periodicals and newspapers worldwide. Receiving the highest awards in University of North Florida's annual writing competition for three years in a row, Bigbee's novella, "Aunt Chattie's Beads" and poems appear in the university's chapbooks from 1992 to 1994. A SuperStock, Inc. <http://www.superstock.com> <http://www.superstock.com> photographer since 1995, Bigbee’s stock images have been commercially licensed for use in disparate projects and commercial ventures, including, calendars, American, French, British and Spanish book jackets, international dailies and a variety of other print media.

Bigbee’s fine art work includes a 1995 US Postal Department commission to create the long-awaited POW/MIA commemorative postage stamp (200 million reproductions); her award-winning National Conference for Community and Justice architectural photography commission and accompanying catalog, "Faith's Foundations: Images of Religious Diversity appeared in 1994, shown twice in solo exhibits prior to the 26 black and white image series. The series was the first faith-based photography to be installed in Jacksonville, Florida's newly-restored City Hall.

A 1995 commission as documentary photographer for the UNF Honors Program, in which Bigbee was enrolled during her undergraduate years, produced “Gonna Fish ‘til the Day I Die: Vanishing Lifestyles of Northeast Florida Fisherfolk,” and "Ebb Tide at American Beach: Survival-Struggle of the First Black-Owned Seacoast Community." Lecturing and photographing American Beach's dwindling population--due to encroachment from all directions--and with respect to its striking, vernacular architecture, including the "Blue Palace" and the "Boat House." Bigbee self-funded the project for nearly a decade, lecturing at University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication on the cultural erosion of Amelia Island's American Beach, specifically, the cultural decline of the formerly-black American Beach. Additional personal work during the 1990s was the subject of group and as one-person exhibitions. During this time, a solo gallery show, “Recent Angels,” 1993; a tondo (round format) series, “Fables for Our Time” comprised a 1998 one-person exhibition with catalog featuring art historian Dr. Debra Murphy's impressions at The Jacksonville (Florida) Museum of Contemporary Art. Fables series' flagship image, The Vanitas Tondo, captured Best in Show at the large and comprehensive, all media Sewannee Valley Regional.

During the late 1980s-1990s, Bigbee accepted a commission as still photographer for an incumbent’s mayoral campaign. An award-winning, widely-exhibited series of candid images taken along the campaign trail, "Campaigners" allows viewers to go behind the scenes, a watershed time for Bigbee, who says she was "miserably shy" prior to the job, a test that would come to prepare her for her late nineties and early 2000s concentration on Cirque du Soleil.

Additionally during the mid-late 1990s, Bigbee compiled a more scholarly history and photo analysis of Northeast Florida's American Beach, documenting the natural and social erosion of the oldest continuous-existence African-American seacoast community, with its colorful culture and vernacular architecture, American Beach on Amelia Island, FL in “Ebb Tide at American Beach.” Included in the series are aerial shots of the beach community, for which the photographer positioned herself more outside the aloft aircraft than in. Four images from the series appeared in USA Today (The Nation, July, 1998).

In 1999 and 2000, Bigbee was granted rare, behind-scenes access to Cirque du Soleil productions; selected works from the series “Portraits from Cirque du Soleil” appear on magazine covers and in feature stories (see http://womeninphotography.org/Events-Exhibits/SILVERSHOTZ/WIPI-article-2014.html). <http://womeninphotography.org/Events-Exhibits/SILVERSHOTZ/WIPI-article-2014.html%29.> Bigbee has published numerous packages relating to popular culture and the arts.

Within photography’s alternative sector, Ivy Bigbee maintains a gallery at alternativephotography.com where her work, showing various approaches to Polaroid manipulation, has been accessible since 2005. With portfolios including portraits of author John Updike, musician David Bowie and poet Robert Bly, Bigbee's documentary photography encompasses several bodies of work, including "Gonna' Fish 'Til the Day I Die: Vanishing Lifestyles of Northeast Florida Fisherfolk, created with original fieldwork by an undergraduate UNF honors class and led by author-civil rights activist and folklorist Stetson Kennedy.

Several original Polaroid manipulations by Bigbee reside in, and were subjects of study by the Getty Conservation Institute, whose ongoing research aims to chemically analyze and document every type of photography in existence; the Los Angeles-area Conservation Institute’s photograph analysis program was founded and is chaired by Dusan Stulik, PhD, Senior Scientist. Bigbee has dubbed Stulik's ambitious project the "Rosetta Stone of Photography.”
Ivy Bigbee's photography career has been chronicled in Time, Newsweek, People, and nationwide daily newspapers; her selected works have appeared in USA Today, on Jacksonville's The Florida Times-Union's front page, Oxford American, Destinations and Florida History and the Arts (partial list) and on HBO.

On Ivy Bigbee: what others are saying:
[Ivy Bigbee] came to us fully formed as a woman and an artist. I don’t really think Ivy needed all that much teaching. I tried not to block her from her own genius: Essentially, I just got out of her way.” —William Slaughter, PhD, professor, poet, editor, Mudlark Electronic Journal of Poetry.

[Ebb Tide at American Beach documentary] is one of her most remarkable accomplishments—she didn’t just record images, she went there and got to know the people, the situation and the place. The result is an unforgettable document of a social and political issue. — David Porter, photography professor, University of North Florida

Statement
I believe in the power and beauty of photography and language. I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, in what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the mind when the eyes are closed; and I believe . . . that the borders of our mind are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single energy . . . and that our memories are part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself. Ideas of Good and Evil, quoted in Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer.

Exhibiting her photography since 1980, both in one-person and group shows, Ivy Bigbee's WIPI participation, selected exhibitions, etc., are listed below, first as WIPI-sponsored, then one person, and finally, selected juried group exhibitions. While time and space do not allow a complete list of her WIPI activities and credits, for complete information, see search engine on Reference page at http://www.womeninphotography.org/wipihome.html

(biography and exhibition list provided by Ivy Bigbee)

Partial list, WIPI-sponsored events and exhibitions in which Ivy Bigbee photography, biography, etc, were featured:
2015 WIPI Photo Art installation "Put Yourself in the Picture" Photo LA group collage
WIPI Charter Archive Beinecke; Bigbee gallery and biography(includes printed materials)
2014, Silvershotz magazine featuare Women in Photography International; final analog publication 2014-2015; includes photo-illustrated features of career bio/vitae for WIPI charter members; cover image by Ivy Bigbee from "Portraits from the Cirque du Soleil"
Ivy Bigbee photo profile, range of work and selected images.
2013 WIPI online, juried exhibitions include "Out of Focus," "Turning Silver" 25th Anniersary (2006), "Flowers"
For complete listing of Bigbee activity and exhibition awards within WIPI, see home page, freefind index/sitemap.


SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2001 St. James Building, City Hall, Jacksonville (permanent
installation, catalog, Faith's Foundations: Images of Religious Diversity)
1999 Gallery Contempo, St. Augustine, FL
1998 The Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art; Fables for Our Time (exhibition catalog)
1996 Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum: Faith's Foundations: Images of Religious Diversity; Jacksonville International Airport, Prime Osborne Convention Center, Jacksonville
1994 Kirschner-Haack Fine Art, Miami Beach, Florida
Prime Osborne Convention Center, Jacksonville, Florida; Faith's Foundations: Images of Religious Diversity (catalog)
Van Droff Gallery, Jacksonville, Florida
1993 Reddi-Arts Gallery, Jacksonville, Florida
Theatre Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida
1979 Keflavik, Iceland


SELECTED JURIED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Selected (Group) Juried Exhibitions
2014 Photo LA, Women in Photography International, Postcard presentation
2013 Annual Juried Competition, Women in Photography International
2012-13 “The Human Condition,” Minneapolis Photo Center, Minneapolis (Cig Harvey), (catalog).
2010 “5 x 5 Exposed,” Torpedo Factory, Target Gallery, Alexandria, (Kathleen Ewing) (catalog).
Alternative Photography.com 2010 Calendar, “Dawn’s Unfolding” (June; Polaroid
2009 “Summer ’09, Children, Flowers and Trees,” Women in Photography
International (online), HM flowers category, (Margot Shaw)
“Family Gatherings, Landscapes, Self-Portraits” (online), (HM-Landscapes) (Sarah Leen,
Senior Photo Editor, National Geographic Magazine )
2008 “2008 Competition,” Women in Photography International, (online)
2007 “2007 Competition,” Women in Photography International, (online),
(Andrea Bakacs, Paul Kopeikin, Royce Blair, Tim Anderson
2006 “Turning Silver, 25th Anniversary,” Women in Photography International, (online)
(Kim Gougenheim, Catherine Edelman/Catherine Edelman Gallery,
Joyce Tenneson, Jean Ferro, Rose, Shoshana/Rose Gallery, Andrew Smith,
Susanne Konig, Scott McKiernan, Lauri Kratochvil, Stephen Perloff
2005 “Beauty: Camera Eye of the Beholder,” Women in Photography International,
HM (online exhibition , www.womeninphotography.org <http://www.womeninphotography.org> <">http://www.womeninphotography.org> <http://www.womeninphotography.org> ; (Tyra Banks)
Ruth 100 B’day Ruth Bernhard Tribute, WIPI Members (online)
1998 "First Coast Regional Competition," Jacksonville, Florida
1997 “Art and Religion: The Many Faces of Faith,” Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies/Diocese of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (catalog and exhibition checklist)
“National Exposure IV” (Denise Miller, Director, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago), A.R.C. Gallery, Chicago
“Celestial Motifs” (John Bunker), Cummer Gallery of Art, Jacksonville, Florida
1996 “Optical Allusions: Real or Imagined People” (Ivy Bigbee), Karpeles
Manuscript Library Museum, Jacksonville
“Combined Talents: The Florida National X,” Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Tallahassee (catalog)
“43rd Artists’ National,” Coastal Center for the Arts, St. Simons Island, Georgia
(Henry Flood Roberts)
1995 “Pretty Ma Ma & the King Live On!” Contemporanea, Jacksonville, Florida
“ . . . Worth a Thousand Words,” Benham Gallery, Seattle, Washington
(Duane Michals)
“Crosscurrents,” Jacksonville Coalition for the Visual Arts at The Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art
“Suwannee Valley Regional '95,” Best in Show (John Bunker), Lake City, Florida
1994 “Arts Mania,” Jacksonville, Florida
“Humor, Whimsy & Satire,” Gallery 88, Jacksonville, Florida
1993 “Members' Juried Exhibition,” Gallery 88, Jacksonville, Florida
“Lucky Charms,” The House Gallery, Jacksonville, Florida
“Honors Exhibition,” St. Augustine Art Association, St. Augustine, Florida
“Sense and Sensuality,” Gallery 88, Jacksonville, Florida
“Photography and Three Dimensions,” St. Augustine Art Association
“Emerging Artists,” Gallery 88, Jacksonville
“Cutting Edge,” St. Augustine Art Association, St. Augustine, Florida
“Focus on Photography,” The University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida
“ Women in the Arts,” Beaches Fine Arts Guild, Jacksonville Beach, Florida
“Sewannee Valley Regional '93,” Lake City, Florida


SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD:

2014 Loupe Awards International; Bronze Award; “Dancers”
2005-2009 Women in Photography International, bi-annual exhibitions, HM
1997 Excellence in Photography, (sole awardee), “Art & Religion: The Many Faces
of Faith,” Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies/Villanova University, Philadelphia
1996 Stock Solution’s Top Website Award
1995 Best in Show, Suwannee Valley Regional '95 (John Bunker), Lake City, Florida;
$1,000 cash award.
1994 “Photography and Three Dimensions,” St. Augustine Art Association
(David Royal Olson, Associate Professor of Art, University of North Florida)
1993 Gallery 88, “Emerging Artists Exhibition,” Jacksonville (Janice Hartwell)
“Focus on Photography” (Larry Smith, photojournalist)
University of North Florida Annual Exhibition (Joan Fetchen, Executive
Director, Cultural Affairs, Lake City Community College, Lake City, Florida)
“Northeast Florida Regional Exhibition,” St. Augustine Art Association (Nofa
Dixon, Director, Educational Activities, Jacksonville Art Museum; Adjunct
Professor of Art, The University of North Florida)


SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Alternative Photography.com 2010 Calendar, “Dawn’s Unfolding” (June).
Alternative Photography: Art & Artists, Edition 1, Malin Fabbri, Lulu, 2006, photographs
published.
“A masterful 'coming of age:' Studs Terkel defines our century by those who
lived it” (review). Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, November 5, 1995.
"Alegria!" (cover photograph, text, photographs). ARBUS, Sept./Oct., 2,000.
"American Memories," Library of Congress website (photographs and photo
restorations featured), 2000.
“And Justiss for all” (cover photograph and additional photographs featured).
Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida, July 5, 1994
“Anthem for heroes” (poetry). Commission, Success Guide, Fall, 1994,
Jacksonville, Florida.
“Aunt Chattie's Beads” (short fiction). University of North Florida Writing
Competition Winners, 1993.
“Beach Lady of American Beach” (post card reproduction), 1992.
“Between Engagements” (cover photograph, additional photograph and
poem featured), Success Guide, Fall, 1994.
“Challenging experiences” (photographs featured). UNF Journal, Winter,
1995
. “Dreams taking shape.” Osprey, University of North Florida, Jacksonville,
Florida, March, 1992.
“Ebb tide at American Beach: black history and culture of a seaside
community.” Conference on social theory, politics and the arts, University of
Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, archived: American
Council for the Arts, New York, 1992.
“Ebb tide at American Beach: photography's role in the survival-struggle of
an African-American seacoast community.” Southern American Studies Association Biennial Conference, Clearwater, Florida, March 31, 1995.
"Fables for our time" (exhibition catalog; photographs featured). The
Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art, 1998.
“Faith's foundations” (poster). The National Conference for Community and
Justice, Jacksonville, Florida, February, 1994.
“Fall and rise of American Beach.” Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida, March,
1992.
“The Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art: A Renaissance of Timely
Art” (Case for Support), 1995.
"Jazz in a ‘mayers’ key" (review, photograph featured), ARBUS, Oct., 1998.
“Library collection to become a movie script” (photo-illustrated profile).
Library Link, USF, Tampa, 1997.
“Liturgy" (poetry). University of Worth Florida Writing Competition
Winners, 1993.
“Mama said knock you out.” Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida, November 5,
1991.
Mudlark (cover photograph, electronic poetry journal), William Slaughter (ed.)
September, 1995; Spring, 1996.
"No-hassle castle" (text and photographs). Arbus, Dec./Jan. 1999/2000.
Optical Allusions: An Art Photographer’s Poems. Jacksonville: Reddi-Arts, 1997
“Poetic justiss” (cover and feature photographs), Folio Weekly, July 5, 1994.
“Positive and negative” (poetry). Spinnaker, September 9, 1992.
“POW & MIA NEVER FORGOTTEN.” Principal photographer/stylist,
POW/MIA commemorative stamp, U.S. Postal Service, May, 1995.
"Prayers for Maddie" (photoessay), Jacksonville: Folio Weekly, October 26,
1999.
“Radical feminist examines creativity” (book review). The Florida Times-Union,
July 21, 1994.
Silvershotz: The International Journal of Fine Art Photography; cover; Women in Photography International feature story; April, 2014 (Volume 8, Edition 5); final analog publication of journal.
“Reexamining reconstruction” (book review). The Florida Times-Union, June
25, 1995.
“Soul journey one”(photograph reproduction), Fountain, June,1994. “Stetson Kennedy unmasked” (cover photograph, text and additional
photographs featured), UNF Alumni Journal, Winter, 1995.
“Stilled lives” (photography). Success Guide, Fall, 1994.
“Successful slides: photographing your artwork (photoillustrated monograph),
Upper Fairmount: Art Calendar, 1997.
“The moon queen” (poetry). Fountain, Ft. Lauderdale, June, 1994.
"The new greatest show on earth" (text and photographs), Jacksonville:
Arbus, December-January 2000.
“The poetry and photography of a local artist” (photographs featured),
Postmortem, Miami Beach, Florida, June 10, 1994.
University of North Florida Honors Program (portraits), 1994.
University of North Florida Ospreys Baseball Media Guide (cover photograph),
1994.
UNF Journal (cover, photographs featured), Summer, 1995.
“With honors” (still life photograph reproduction), UNF Journal, Winter,
1995.
“Yellow ribbons, missing men.” Essay, Folio Weekly, September 10, 1991.
"You bet! Mississippi resort Beau Rivage has it all." Arbus, Sept./Oct. 2000.
“You’ve come a long way, Barbie” (photograph and profile featured), Folio
Weekly, February 20, 1997.

Duncan, Sarah, "Circular logic." Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, August 25, 1998.
Earley, Tony. “A worn path” (color frontispiece), The Oxford American, issue # 19, 1997.
Florida Department of State, Florida History & the Arts (quarterly), photographs published,
2001-2008
Harakas, Margo. “Stamped in memory” (artist profile) Sun-Sentinel, Florida, May 29, 1995.
HBO, "Autopsy: The Carl von Cosel story" (photographs featured), New York: 1999.
High, Carol Kearney. "Focus on photos" (review; photograph featured), Naples: Naples
Daily News, Neapolitan, April 12, 1999.
Hilboldt, Brandy. "A photographer's poetic worlds” (review; photographs featured). The
Florida Times-Union, August 9, 1998.
Hinson, Mark. “ ‘Combined talents’ join for an eclectic show at FSU” (review), Tallahassee
Democrat, 9/20/9.
Hyman, Ann. “Break poetry’s seal by reading it aloud” (book review). The Florida Times-
Union, April 26, 1998.
Kennedy, Stetson. After Appomattox (book jacket photograph), Gainesville: University Press
of Florida, 1995.
Kennedy, Stetson. The Klan Unmasked (Chinese edition) (photographs featured), Beijing:
Foreign Language Editions, 1997.
Koehl, Carla and Marc Peyser. “The stamp of history” (artist profile). Newsweek, April 24,
1995.
Lee, Stanley C. “MFA displays talents of Florida National XI. FSView, Tallahassee, 9/2/96.
Leighton, Anne. “IVY BIGBEE” (cover image, artist profile, photographs featured).
ARBUS, Jacksonville, November/December, 1995.
Lockwood, Eileen. “Jacksonville; winter city in summerland,” (photographs featured),
Washington D.C.: Destinations, June, 1998.
McEwan, Hamish. Radio review, Fables for Our Time. WJCT Stereo 90 Jacksonville,
September 6, 1998.
Murphy-Livingston, Debra. "Objects of contemplation: Time and place in the work of
Helene Baker, Ivy Bigbee, and Allison Watson, "Diana Triumphant:"
The Cummer Symposium, Jacksonville, February 19, 2000.
“Newest commemorative stamp has UNF ties” (photograph featured). Inside UNF, June,
1995.
Parks, Cynthia. “Bigbee's angels” (review), Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Florida,
December 12, 1993.
Perspective. The Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art (photographs featured), August,
1998.
Phelps, Bob. “Stamped in our memory” (profile, photograph featured). Florida Times-Union,
May 29, 1995.
Phelts, Marsha Dean. An American Beach for African-Americans (photograph featured).
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.
Parks, Cynthia. “Unity with diversity,” Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Florida, February 6,
1994.
Richards, Allan. “Running the show” (photograph featured), Sunshine (Sun-Sentinel), Ft.
Lauderdale, October 13, 1996.
Richardson, Monica. “Foundation’s grant helps program, others.” Florida Times-Union, January 24,
1996.
Ross, Lilla. “A brush with angels” (front page photographs, artist profile),
Times-Union, Jacksonville, Florida, April 3, 1994.
Ross, Lilla. “Come together” (photographs featured). The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville,
Florida, October 25, 1996.
Ross, Lilla. “Exhibit puts her faith in focus” (artist profile, photographs featured), Florida
Times–Union, Jacksonville, Florida, February 18, 1994.
Safavi, Charlotte. "Operation Ivy" (review; photograph featured). Folio Weekly, August 11,
1998.
Schudel, Matt. "States writes: how the long-forgotten Federal Writers' Project became a
road map to the future," (photographs featured), Sunshine, Sun-Sentinel, January 30,
2000.
Sharp, Deborah. "Waves of change beat upon beach community (photographs featured).
USA Today, July 21, 1998.
Smith, Mary. “Commemorative stamp is triumph” (artist profile, photograph featured).
Oscoda Press, Oscoda, Michigan, May 24, 1995.
“Stamp of honor” (profile, photograph featured). People, June 12, 1995.
The Highlighter. “Ivy Bigbee” (artist profile), UNF Honors Program, Summer, 1995.
U.S. Postal Service. “Stamps, etc.” (photograph reproduction, POW & MIA
commemorative stamp), April, May, June 1995.
Waring-Flood, Clive. “WIPI promotes the visibility of women working in the photographic arts”
(cover; photographs featured), Silvershotz, The International Journal of Fine
Art Photography, May, 2014, Australia/UK.
Walker, David. “New MIA stamp features Bigbee photos” (photograph featured). Photo
District News, June, 1995.
Weeks, Ted. “Sensual art” (review), Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida, July 13, 1993.
Weeks, Ted. “Contemporary angels” (one-person exhibition preview). Folio Weekly,
Jacksonville, November 30, 1993.
Weeks, Ted. “Funny art” (review), Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida.
Weeks, Ted. “13 Artists” (review), Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida, January 10, 1995.
Weeks, Ted. “Sacred ground” (review, one-person exhibition), Folio Weekly, Jacksonville,
October 22, 1996.
Weeks, Ted. “Searching for gems” (review), Folio Weekly, Jacksonville, Florida, July 16, 1995.
Weightman, Sharon. “New exhibits to showcase women’s art,” (photograph featured)
Florida Times-Union, March 1, 1998.
Weightman, Sharon. “All smiles” (review, photograph featured), Florida Times-Union,
Jacksonville, July 31, 1994.
Weightman, Sharon. “Artist shows at airport” (photograph featured), Florida Times-Union,
Jacksonville, Florida, July 14, 1996.
Weightman, Sharon. “ ‘Strength and diversity . . .’ ” (review), Florida Times-Union,
Jacksonville, Florida, September 25, 1994.
6:58 (poetry). Postmortem, Miami Beach, Florida, May 26, 1994.


EDUCATION

1994 Bachelor of Arts (Summa cum laude and University Honors)
University of North Florida, Jacksonville Majors: Photography, Literature


COLLECTIONS

U.S. Postal Service, The City of Jacksonville; The National Conference for Community and Justice; Jacksonville Historical Society; The University of North Florida Honors Program; Drs. Debra Murphy-Livingston and Felix Livingston; Ginny Stine; William Cowan; Estate of Colonel and Mrs. Robert Stefanik; Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth Kelleher; Drs. Paula Horvath-Neimeyer and Gregg Neimeyer; Jerry Shepp; Ellen McAnany; Robert Crews; Adam White; Dr. Mike Mass; Rita Robbins; Estate of Erma Bombeck; Shannon Brinkman; Barbara Branch; Cocanougher Design Studios; Simon Gregg; Angela Tau Bailey; Trudi Harris; Stetson Kennedy/Stetson Kennedy Foundation; Anne Leighton; Cinda Sherman; Professor William Slaughter; Sandee Winrow; St. John’s Cathedral, Jacksonville, FL; University of South Florida; Steve Williams/CEO, Harbinger; Dr. and Mrs. Adam Bigbee; John Updike/Yale University Library Special Collections; Bob White, Maura Wolfson-Foster; Billy Hart; Robert Bly; Shands University Hospital, Jacksonville, Florida


EMPLOYMENT:

2011-2012 Contributing writer, Discovery Communications, ID Channel
2009-2011 True Crime Examiner, National, Washington D.C. editions,
Examiner.com
2009–2010 Photographer-writer-poet
1998-2004 Photographer-writer-poet.
1996-2000 Curator of Art, Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, Jacksonville
1996-1997 Adjunct Instructor of Photography, University of North Florida.
Jacksonville. Documentary and fine art photographer. Poet. Writer.
Clients: USA Today, The Library of Congress, United States Postal Service,
The Florida Times-Union, Folio Weekly, The University of North Florida; The
National Conference for Community and Justice, Ginny Stine Interiors
1995 Documentary photographer, UNF Honors Program, “Telling Tales”
Honors semester course, William B. Fletcher Consulting, Nashville, Tennessee (stills photographer and photojournalist, mayoral campaign)
1994-1995 Stamp photographer, U.S. Postal Service
1994 Media Relations, Kirschner Haack Fine Art, Miami Beach, Florida
1978-1980 Editor, Art Director, Contributing Writer, Woman to Woman (NATO
Officers’ Wives magazine), Keflavik, Iceland


Professional Associations

Charter Member, Women in Photography International;
Jacksonville Women’s Network (by invitation)

UPDATE - MAY 2015 - APRIL 2017

SELECTED RECENT HURIED EXHIBITIONS

2017
"Landscapes 2017,” Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins (Lisa Volpe)
2016
“The Ties That Bind,” Mpls Photo Center, Minneapolis (Howard Christopherson),
(exhibition book)
Animalia, Photo Places Gallery, Middlebury, VT (hardcover exhibition book)
2015
“Patterns in Nature,” Mpls Photo Center, Minneapolis (Jim Brandenburg,
National Geographic), (exhibition book)
2010
“5 x 5 Exposed,” Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, (Kathleen Ewing/Kathleen Ewing
Gallery, Washington, DC)

Still Photography Concentration: 2014-Ongoing as of May, 2017

Additional to the artist’s photographs ongoingly selected for juried exhibitions organized by respected photography galleries and via noteworthy jurists, drawing on her early 1990s, award-winning work with bird-themed tondi, or round still life photographs, in 2014, the distinguished, internationally-published photographer/writer/poet Ivy Bigbee (working in all media sectors) began photographing extant bird species, aiming to express the avian behavior she observed in her imaging that demonstrates similar actions and bearing in humans. Bigbee’s bird photographs evidence emotions of love, loyalty, fidelity, compassion, inter-species friendship/rejection and bellicosity, tolerance: Phenomena not unlike the social and cognitive behavior of humankind. “Undeniably,” Bigbee states, “there could be more ‘oneness’—or relative sentience—interspecially occurring across the mesh of existence than many realize.”

Drawing also on her scientific background and (Summa cum laude) formal education, Bigbee’s painstaking avian observations and photography soon consumed successive days and nights, with shooting schedules determined by her subjects, and thereby taking precedence over other aspects of the photographer’s life. Bigbee’s to-date untitled series continues to encounter the above-noted avian-human commonalities, which she approaches objectively/subjectively and historically/compositionally.

Cheep thrills: Though the artist’s subjects are wild birds, and given an ongoing battle with cancer presents additional challenges, Bigbee experiences renewal and inspiration in her pursuits. Harnessing social media as the ultimate sounding board, Bigbee daily uploads new work to test the meaningfulness and overall relevance of this latest series. Colleagues, academicians and newcomers to her work provide feedback to Ivy Bigbee, whose broad-brush background—which includes authoring a the grant-supported Optical Allusions: an Art Photographer’s Photoillustrated Poems— she intends, enables and informs her still photography “bird work.”

Women In Photography International Charter Member

Ivy Bigbee
Centreville, VA 20121
ibigbee@aol.com
www.ivybigbee.com


©Copyright for all images remains the property of exhibited photographer, and promotional use for Women In Photography International. All inquiries regarding use of and purchasing image use rights must be directed to the photographer.

FILE: await bio revision August 27, 2014
s 8/30
REGISTERED for TEXT update 4/6/2015
UPDATE 5/05/2015 Materials: books, magazines, catalogs, flyers, cards, letter
Update, 5/06/2015 images
Update 5/11/2015, profile image (per Bigbee, bio to follow)
File: GALLERY & BIO complete : 5/12/2015, bio & resume
UPDATE, photographer response - UPDATE: MARCH 2015 - APRIL 2017

UPDATE FINAL: May 2017 website content 1999-2017
womeninphotography.org file transfer to the Beinecke.
All organization files, computer, external hard drive, printed materials, photographs,
DVDs, books, competitions files and onsite installation art work