Annette Bottaro-Walklet is the youngest in a family of artists raised in the picturesque surroundings of California's Carmel Valley and the Monterey Peninsula. After earning a degree in Economics and Business Management from Sonoma State University in Northern California's wine country, she pursued her dream of living in Yosemite National Park and took a job in the park's Yosemite Valley. Skills she had acquired while employed as a color printer in professional and mini-labs, combined with her interest in the relationship of color and form in the natural landscape steered her in the direction of fine art photography. In the late 1980s she became the Assistant Manager and Workshop Coordinator for The Ansel Adams Gallery, located in Yosemite Valley. The role immersed her in the world of fine art, introduced her to the visionaries of photography and helped refine her own imagery.
In 1993 she left the Gallery to pursue photography full-time as manager of QuietWorks Photography (www.quietworks.com). Since that time she has taught photography workshops for a variety of organizations. Her skills as an instructor earned her an opportunity to serve as a Park Programmer for Kodak in Yellowstone National Park the summer of 1998, providing camera walks and lectures to the public in a role similar to one she performed in Yosemite Valley.
Her photographs routinely appear in calendars, books and magazines, and her
fine prints have won numerous awards in group and national juried exhibits,
and are in private and corporate collections worldwide.
Annette works in 35mm and 4x5 formats, preferring intimate and abstract details
in the natural landscape.
Artist’s Statement
“The tone of politics and foreign policy of our country is divisive
in recent months, even though a terrifying episode had united us so solidly
a couple years ago. Sometimes we need to steal away from the tension of bitter
debates and just simply be a human, not a citizen, not a patriot, not a person
fettered by the lines we construct to define our world and attitudes. I feel
that moving away from our constant boundaries into the natural world is the
surest way to be free to seek a new perspective and understanding, which may
lead to healing. A photograph can act as the portal, a retreat, to the natural
world when one can’t physically escape. The images I select to make
fine prints are intended to offer up their calm and peacefulness, a balm that
reunites us simply as humans.”
Sun to Moon Gallery
1515 Levee Street
Dallas, TX 75207
Phone 214.745.1199