Art Collector Laura Ruth Bidwell Gets Behind The Camera

Photographer Laura Ruth Bidwell doesn’t have much equipment — just a camera, tripod and black cloth. “I’m not interested in the photographic part,” says the art collector and Transformer Station co-founder. “I’m interested in the actual person I’m shooting.” When Jane Baeslach, with her Bettie Page bangs, and David Russell Stempowski, with his love of eyeliner and the Cure, attended a Transformer Station gallery opening together, Bidwell’s interest was piqued. “They’re both beautiful, exotic creatures,” she says. To capture that dark intrigue on camera, she dreamt up the series Gratiot, on display at the Cleveland Print Room Sept. 8-Nov. 4. Bidwell imagined the real couple as fictional immortals who thrive at night in Gratiot, Ohio, an actual village of about 200 nestled in Licking and Muskingum counties. “I thought, What if they had lived in this little town with no exit with no one knowing it for hundreds of years?” she says. She spent four years drawing out that shadowy quality with portraits of the couple and animal carcass still lifes on a black backdrop. Whether it’s the pigeon’s red feet during flight or how a dress falls provocatively at a woman’s thigh, the images capture stolen moments. “These are the objects that are the most sort of potent and representative of an eternal life or a mystery,” Bidwell says. 2550 Superior Ave., Cleveland, 216-802-9441, clevelandprintroom.com