Biography, Carole Patterson

b i o g r a p h y

"Capturing the spirit of a child is my most challenging and rewarding work, my passion"

Carole Patterson has been "capturing the spirit" of her subjects for over a decade. From the studio of the world renown Mexican artist Francisco Toledo to special moments with cellist Yo Yo Ma and finally to her own spacious studio in Mid-America, she has found an inner spirit in her subjects that only a true artist can capture.

Carole's photographs have been featured in over forty solo exhibitions from coast to coast, including New York, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. They have been published in the New York Times, the Philedelphia Inquirer, the London Times, Latin American Art, and the Smithsonian Magazine, among others.

With a Smithsonian Institution Grant, Carole began photographing forty of Mexico's most illustrious artists for Out of the Volcano, Portraits of Contemporary Mexican Artists, text by Margaret Sayers Peden. The Smithsonian then toured the exhibition of these portraits for three years.

With Missouri Arts Council and NEA Grants, Carole began a photographic journey into the beauty and devotion of fatherhood in the African American communities throughout the United States. The book and exhibition are titled Commitment: Fatherhood in Black America.

But of all the famous and intriguing subjects that Carole has photographed, her favorite one for the last nine years has been her granddaughter Lilli.