Super WebGirl travels back to the farm

Published 7:00 pm Monday, November 17, 2003

Island photographer Jane Lindley’s close-up details of weathered barn doors and hand-crafted latches evokes images from “Witness,” Peter Weir’s classic 1985 film about Pennsylvania’s Amish community.

That’s no coincidence; Lindley, whose work is on view at Gallery Fraga this month, was raised in Bucks County, Penn., in the heart of “Amish country.” Her photographs shows details of outbuildings on the farm that belonged to her parents.

“I grew up in an old farmhouse,” she said. “It’s really influenced all my design, all my photography. I’m a ‘building person.’ A handmade latch looks, to me, like contemporary design, like modern art.”

The atmosphere of her home promoted creativity, Lindley recalls. Her parents, both artists, taught for a time at the Art Students’ League in New York City. Now in their 70s, both still paint and show.

“They really taught me to see, to look at things differently,” she said. “My parents might look at someone others would call ‘heavy-set’ and say ‘oh, look at that curve…’’’

Lindley’s current show marks a return to the fine art image-making that she’s at times set aside.

Just a few years after graduating from Hampshire College in Amherst, Lindley found herself earning a good income as an associate managing editor for New England Publishing Group in Boston, Mass.

“I was 29,” she said. “I was making $48,000 a year. I didn’t even know how to spend all that money. I traveled, I went to New Zealand. I thought it would never end.”

Then Lindley and and her husband decided to pull up stakes. The pair moved to Seattle on a whim in 1992.

“We said, it’s got the Space Needle, how could you go wrong?’” It was a time in our lives to take chances.”

The couple soon relocated to Bainbridge, where Lindley had assumed she would continue to make money as an editor.

She was dissuaded by the relatively low pay scale, however.

She decided to parlay her photographic studies at Boston’s New England School of Photography into her own business, Lindley Photography.

She started another business, joining forces with a friend to form Lindley-Eaton Productions, Inc.

“It was fun having another design partner,” she said, “And we were a one-stop shop for design.”

Lindley photographed annual report covers for scores of clients that ranged from Adobe Systems, Inc., Valley Medical Center and Holiday Inn, to Museum of History and Industry and the Brainerd Foundation. Her work appeared in ads, brochures, posters and web sites – but even with corporate clients, Lindley felt she was scraping by.

“I had a lot of big clients,” she said, “but I realized I couldn’t shoot enough big clients to make a living. It was supply and demand; the market was saturated with really good photographers.”

Her real break from photography came in 1999, when Lindley started Super WebGirl, Inc., to design and produce corporate web sites.

Lindley notes that, while it was hard to let go of her emotional attachment to photography, she may be, at heart, a creative entrepreneur.

“I love business,” she said. “It’s like a big chess board, a challenge. You’re always learning.”