Meet Paula Eubanks | Retired art educator and visual artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Paula Eubanks and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Paula, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
It was a challenge, not an easy or laid-out path, one I could determine myself rather than following one already planned by someone else. I could follow my own instincts and desires, choosing my own subject matter, style and approach.

Being an artist-photographer was something I chose in college when I took a photography course and kept talking photography classes until I graduated when, by invitation of my photography professor, entered into an MFA program. As an artist I could follow my own path, not one laid out for me so I experimented with altering my photographs. Years ago, as a lover of the environment along the coast, I became very interested in sea level rise and did a series of images that were based on historic structures, such as old forts and the homes of people who owned islands on the Georgia coast. I photoshopped water into them, imagining what they would look like in the future. Some of them even have future dates based on projected sea level rise.

The coast was also one of the first areas inhabited by Europeans who developed plantations based on slave labor. I read everything I could get my hands on about this history and did a series of artist’s books about the old plantations that were part of the environment in which I had grown up and now lived on the Georgia coast. Artist’s books fascinated me because they can contain both visual and verbal material and the intersection of the visual and verbal worlds was the subject of my doctoral dissertation.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My art is about more than depicting the world in which I live, it is about imaging a world of the future. It was not always easy to gain a place in the art world. First I had to make original and challenging photographic images, then find a place in the art world by submitting my work for exhibition to build a resume and then by producing entire exhibitions with a theme, in my case, sea level rise and climate change. One of the most important things I learned was that I needed to read about and understand my subject matter and gather a body of photographic images on the subject on which I was focused. Then it was important to explore all of that so see where these visual and verbal worlds come together to create powerful images/expressions. Yes, I had to have something to say and the more powerful the message, the stronger the work became.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Of course I would head straight for the water! The intersection of water and land is fascinating to me, it’s where two very different worlds meet. Recently my husband and I had dinner at a restaurant on the beach and looking out toward the horizon I could see the world from which my supper came! The human-built environment is interesting but where it meets with water is even more fascinating. The earth is 70% water just as humans are 70% water. Perhaps this explains our fascination for swimming in the ocean or just walking along its edge. The built environment along the edge of the water can contrast sharply with the natural beach in which the transition between the two is extended and gradual. Both are fascinating to me.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Dr. Robert Nix was my first photography instructor and my major professor in art education. He was both a photographer and an art teacher and inspired me to follow his footsteps and become both. In my first job I got a grant to build a darkroom in my classroom and taught pinhole photography to high school students who made their own cameras out of cardboard. When I could no longer teach because I was raising special-needs twins, I continued to make photographs. Since my sons’ greatest need was to develop language, I combined words with images. It is a passion I have continued all my life and will never set aside.

The most important thing Dr. Nix taught me was “First, you have to have something to say.”

Website: www.pkeubanks.com

Image Credits
Paula Eubanks