Polly Steinmetz’s animal photography goes one step beyond

Artists are captured by ideas that other people walk past: think Warhol’s soup cans, or Goldsworthy’s rock sculptures.

It is part of the distinction that makes one an artist – the capacity to translate the ordinary into the sublime.

Polly Steinmetz fits the profile. A photographer from Boyes Hot Springs who teaches at College of Marin, she ably demonstrates, with her show titled “Breathless,” the unique ways in which artists think.

And what exactly is on her mind? Snapping photos of dead animals.

Perhaps “snapping” conveys an impression of casual speed. Steinmetz’s process is neither offhand, nor fast.

For a lamb that was stillborn, for instance, Steinmetz took special care, washing it tenderly before capturing it on film.

“As a society we tend to remove death from our consciousness,” said Steinmetz. “And yet the most profound learning I have experienced has been through loss and the small deaths of daily life.”

Her ability to confront death was not one she chose willingly: Steinmetz’s father died when she was a young woman.

“That event changed my relationship with photographic imagery,” Steinmetz said. “I kept asking the question: How can an image on film or paper – which seemed fragile and temporal – express the loss of such a monumental figure in my life? This took me into the more spiritual and less representative realm of making art.”

It is this paradox that drives the work in “Breathless”: By making a lasting image of something dead, the artist affirms the life that it lived.

“My imagery reflects a fascination with the essence of that which has already passed, whether a dream, death or memory,” Steinmetz said. “Each animal has its own narrative – the context in which it was actually discovered and what I experienced to prepare, preserve and photograph each.”

Short descriptions of those experiences accompany the pieces in the exhibit, explaining how each photo came to be. They are shot in soft light and printed archivally, most measuring 30 by 40 inches or less.

There is a pretty gray fox; a small, blonde goat; a cat fetus floating in a jar of clear liquid; twin pigs with umbilical cords; the head of a black-capped squirrel monkey. The images are beautiful and sad, graphic and visceral. Some of the animals appear to be mere minutes old, others are all but returned to dust.

That range is perhaps what the artist was after, by lifting the veil and challenging our squeamishness.

Steinmetz has lived in Sonoma since 2005. “Best place I have ever lived!” she said.

Married, with two children adopted as toddlers from Guatemala, Steinmetz finds the solitude of photography restorative.

“I am the most quiet of the family and I work a lot in my studio,” she said.

Laboring alone, wrangling artistic thoughts into form, can be a punishingly solitary pursuit.

So sometimes Steinmetz involves her family.

“My young son agreed to drive around the hilly Sonoma roads with me,” said Steinmetz. “I wanted badly to find a rabbit, so I promised him $10.”

Her sister, too, is a frequent collaborator.

“My sister Janis is my most loyal collector of found animals,” Steinmetz said. “She saves birds for me. They sometimes hit the windows of her house.”

Steinmetz’s own house is a “fixer-upper” in the Springs, which she and her husband, Tony Valentine, are remodeling. They chose to restore it in Spanish colonial style, in deference to Sonoma’s history.

That choice seems fitting for an artist of Steinmetz’s sensibilities, who seems to inhabit her world as a collaborator and guest. It is human to think of our lives as consequential, but transcendent to acknowledge the sovereignty of nature and time.

Contact Kate at kate.williams@sonomanews.com.