Photographer keeps rural scenes from fading

Local photographer and oral historian, Carol Shutt, may have her studio in southeast Fleming County near Hillsboro, but her beautiful, true-life works of art are on display all over Kentucky as well as being in many private collections across the country. Her alluring images can even be found as far away as England and Russia.

Carol, a Michigan native, fell in love with photography at a young age, and enjoys telling stories of cultures, people, traditions, landscapes and pioneer history, through a camera lens.

Upon buying her first camera she says she began one of the most enjoyable, important and fulfilling, journeys of her life.

“Every image tells a story,” she said. “I’m trying to capture culture and history because so many people don’t know what their parents and grandparents got to experience and the beauty of it all.”

She spent many years working as a nurse and as a social worker; both jobs carry lots of stress and tragic circumstances.

“I just needed to get away from the stress of my everyday job,” she said. “Taking pictures seemed to stir a passion I had lying dormant in my soul. I could lose myself in the beauty of my surroundings.”

Her husband Richard makes her art complete. Their love of art is one of many they share. “It started with our love for photographing trees and pathways,” Carol said. “He has shared the most amazing adventures with me. We are so lucky to have been able to travel all over and experience and see things that we would never have seen otherwise.”

Richard takes Carol’s work to the next level.

“He processes the images, cuts the mats and constructs the frames from molding and reclaimed barn wood.”

Carol is recovering from a recent health issue and it has led her to embrace her love of life and art.

“Since my recent heath issues we have stopped doing shows, it’s harder for me to get around, it’s not a set-back, its new challenges, new points of view and we get work even harder, we love what we do.”

Carol is a member of the Kentucky Crafted, the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen, the South Arts, Xanadu Gallery and she has displays at the Kentucky Artisan Center of Berea, the Collective Gallery in Lexington, many Kentucky Hospitals and her works are visible in the lobby, along with the new dorms at the University of Kentucky and many other places.

She is a certified Kentucky Community Scholar, and she is trained in documenting folk ways through oral interviews and photographs and has done several projects preserving them by documenting and photographing the history for future generations.

She is now doing custom pieces.

To view or purchase amazing Kentucky images from a true Kentucky artist contact Carol at 606-780-9440, cashutt@earthlink.net and you can also see some of her work on Facebook.

Advertisements for Mail Pouch Tobacco were once a common sight on barns across rural Kentucky, Carol Shutt helps keep those images alive through the lens of her camera.