Photos courtesy Mary Jo Hoffman
Shoreview artist and photographer Mary Jo Hoffman, whose work we’ve profiled as her STILL blog has drawn national attention and commissions from Target and West Elm, has now created what she calls her first fine art offering: Zen Collection. A carefully curated selection of seven images, Zen Collection is a single-source gallery wall reflecting Hoffman’s signature approach to photographing the natural ephemera she finds around her home near Turtle Lake.
In 2012, Hoffman, a Honeywell aerospace engineer turned stay-at-home mom, started her STILL blog, a daily portrait of the rocks and flowers, seedpods and bird eggs, spiders and frogs she finds on her walks and elsewhere. Shot on white paper, her images are simple and serene, and have garnered an avid following for their quiet aesthetic.
Hoffman selected the seven images for the Zen Collection “for their beauty, their composition, their restfulness, and their harmonized color palette,” she writes. “The collection’s natural and botanical elegance would fit in a city high-rise or a lakeside cabin, a new home or an old home, a yoga studio or a Zen retreat.”
The signed and numbered prints are in an 11” x 17” format, and printed on museum-quality, Hahnemühle cotton-rag photo paper. The prints include the lacy skeleton of a leaf, a ring of stones reminiscent of an Andy Goldsworthy artwork, a feather whose edges nearly disappear, and a nest with a collection of eggs. The prints, which sell for $630, are delivered in a custom made, acid-free, pH neutral, archival French folio suitable for long-term storage of fine art. The price includes shipping and tax.
“I decided that I only wanted to try this if I could make something a little bit extraordinary, something that met my own standards of simple beauty, minimalist calm, and the highest possible quality,” Hoffman writes. “It is gorgeous, a little bit expensive, and a step into the realm of fine art for STILL.”
