A Redefined Medium

Image: "Stardust," Paula Jo Jaconetta, photography collage, 36x24.

Paula Jo Jaconetta is leaning into innovation to create her newest pieces of art. Rather than one photograph, the Routt County artist is laying photography that she’s shot over the years into a collage.

“I think there’s a part of me that’s a perfectionist and I could never get exactly what I was looking for in one picture,” she says. “I wasn’t getting the feelings that I wanted to come across by just shooting a straight picture.”

Now, she’s loving the way her overlapping images and textures are turning out. “I love the way it makes me feel when I do it,” she says. Through texture, color and warm, soft light, she crafts visual reflections of feeling and emotion.

Often starting first with a title in mind, pictures of cranes or buffalo that she shot in the Yampa Valley are layered on new backgrounds until she gets to the feeling of the title. Her latest work ties back to the core of her photography practice, which is connection.

“I feel connected to everything around me,” Paula Jo says. “I really try to stay present in the moment and especially over the last couple of years, I’ve been really trying to hone in on that and work on that.”

For the next two First Friday ArtWalks (Sept. 5 and Oct. 3), Paula Jo’s layered photography collages will be on view for the public in the Brinkman Collaborative Space at 111 Eighth St.