Opening reception: Saturday, November 4, 5-7pm

Fine art photographer Vanessa Filley creates a love letter to mothers and childhood with her carefully constructed images. Her work speaks to the power of a mother to shape a child's understanding and experience of the world and the love that lies within that relationship. Her images are inspired by a longing to bring the world of childhood imagination into being, to capture some of the enchantment from stories that begin once upon a time, but do not necessarily end happily. Each image or group of images reference a story, a dream, a friendship, a fairytale, the natural world or current events and sometimes a combination of these sources. The stories include a riff on scary clowns, a bit about a green tea party, an image of disillusion with consumer culture, and a story of women in positions of power manifest in a unicorn queen amongst other narratives. All of Filley's images are thoughtfully created with an eye to color and texture and the possibility of magical thinking.