Jen Perena & Nancy Holowka
Biography
Fine-art photographers Jen Perena and Nancy Holowka have a 'kallitype konnection'. After years of making and exhibiting more traditional photographs (15 years of silver gelatin for Jen and 40 years of silver gelatin and digital for Nancy), they both found themselves interested in historic, alternative processes that allow them to combine their aesthetics with hands-on manual processes. Both took numerous alternative photographic process classes here at the Flower City Arts Center (wet plate collodion, ambrotypes, tin types, salt printing, platinum and palladium, cyanotypes and kallitypes for Jen, and kallitypes and cyanotypes for Nancy), and both learned (and fell in love with) the kallitype process from the same alt-process teacher, Jonathan Merritt, but just 4 years apart. It took a few more years before they would meet, but eventually, their paths crossed, and now they are both regularly inspiring each other and collaborating with each other as they continue to explore their passion for the kallitype process. You can see more of their work in the upcoming Alternate Paths 2023 exhibit, which will open in at the Flower City Arts Center in October 2023.