Jane Waggoner Deschner (Billings, MT) began work on the project, Remember me: a collective narrative in found words and photographs, in 2015 to respond to what she experienced as the “caustic tone arising in our country.” Since then, she has hand-embroidered over twelve hundred found family photographs with texts from obituaries written by anonymous family and friends.

The photographs span the decades of popular black and white photography, chronicling people, places and times. While studio portraits tend toward intentional self-representation, family snapshots often capture random, unintended elements. Obituaries, written by loved ones, are a form of familial self-representation and collective memory. Their shared anecdotes highlight noteworthy aspects of an individual’s life.

She carefully pairs each vernacular photo with obituary text written about a different person. The photos ‘read’ the texts and vice versa, teasing pretension, tragi-comedy and profound truths about the human condition from sentimental artifacts. The effect is both humorous and poignant, weighted by an accumulation of personal stories that span and connect across time and place. The viewer continually shifts their awareness between the facial expressions and vintage styles represented in individual images, the content of the stitched tributes, the details of the stitching, and the overall installation.

Jane Waggoner Deschner has been an exhibiting artist for over forty years; for twenty years her medium has been the found family photograph. Her work has been shown in numerous venues including Robert Mann Gallery, NYC; Museum of Art Fort Collins, CO; University of Michigan–Dearborn; Missoula Art Museum, MT; Churchill Arts, Fallon, NV; and other regional galleries and museums. A large immersive installation of her ongoing project, “Remember me. a collective narrative in found words and photographs,” was exhibited through fall 2022 at the Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT. Recently her work has been juried into three Kris Graves Projects photo books (“OF COVID,” “Solace” and “On Death”) and selected for online photography exhibits by The Curated Fridge, Center for Fine Art Photography, Humble Arts Foundation, Lenscratch and Photo Trouvée. The Montana Arts Council chose her for an Artist Innovation Award in 2019–20 and an ARPA Grant in 2022.

​She earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2002. After growing up in Kansas, she moved to Montana in 1977 where she is currently based. In addition to being a mixed media artist, she works as an exhibition installer, graphic designer, photographer, instructor and picture framer.

Admission:
Adults: $10.00
Students: $8.00
Seniors (65 and up): $8.00
Under 18: FREE