Brett Day Windham‘s fascination with the mysteries of aquatic life is on full display in her work, currently on display at the Griffin Museum of Photography‘s exhibition Elemental Blues at our Lafayette City Center satellite gallery (April 1 – June 30, 2025). We had the wonderful opportunity to sit down and chat about her sea-life cyanotypes via email this week, and her responses are as follows.
Please join us on the following dates for an online conversation with the artists:
May 21st Panel: Sally Chapman, Julia Whitney Barnes, and Anna Leigh Clem.
May 28th Panel: Brett Windham, Bryan Whitney, and Cynthia Katz.
Brett Day Windham (born Cambridge, England, raised Providence, Rhode Island) is a multidisciplinary artist currently working with cyanotype. She received a BFA from Hampshire College, a certificate in painting from SACI in Florence, Italy, and an MFA in Sculpture from RISD. Her work has been collected internationally and has been included in shows around the US, including The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Smack Mellon (New York), the RISD Museum (Providence), University of Maine Museum of Art (Bangor), and RMCAD (Denver). Windham received a Dean’s fellowship at RISD and was nominated for the Joan Mitchell MFA Grant. Residencies include The Select Fair Residency (Brooklyn, New York), The Chrysler Museum Glass Studio (Norfolk, Virginia), TSKW (Key West, Florida), Cascina Remondenca (Chiaverano, Italy), and Penland School of Craft. (Penland, North Carolina). Her work has been cited in Art New England, Elle Decor, V Magazine, Hyperallergic, The New York Times, Providence Phoenix, Whitewall Magazine, and The Bangor Daily News.
Follow Brett Day Windham on Instagram: @brettwindham
In your artist’s statement, you describe your project as unveiling the “unseen rhythms of marine life,” and your cyanotypes are composed of numerous pieces of coral and shell. Is there significance in where these pieces of sea life are obtained?
Brett Day Windham: The impulse to collect is a driving force in my practice. Initially, I aimed to replicate my installation work by gathering a collection of objects on one beach, printing them all together, and naming the piece accordingly. There are also series based on flowers grown in my garden, walks in the woods, objects found on the street, and birds who’ve died in the landscape. I relaxed my rules as I improved at recognizing objects that could create interesting prints, and as the importance of painting the prints grew. The fan corals were given to me by a retired librarian, who’d had them in her collection forever. I could immediately see connections with arteries, breasts, roots, and volcanoes, which excited me.
How is your artmaking speaking to sustainable modes of production, and how does it relate to a sense of place?
BDW: Sustainability is a major concern, and has almost stopped me from working at times. My installations and collages are primarily made from found objects, and I find cyanotypes satisfying because I can usually return the specimens to the landscape. Cyanotype has a relatively low environmental impact, and I love using Indian cotton rag paper when I can afford it. The paper is repurposed from waste in Indian textile production and has been made in the same way for centuries.
In your showcase titled Collections Hybridized: Imagined and Real, when demonstrating your cyanotype process on an orchid, you asked the question: “How can I reinvent the orchid that we see so often?” to force the viewer to lay new eyes on something common. What draws you to reinvent—almost tame—nature in your art?
BDW: I think you are referring to a virtual lecture hosted by the Barry Art Museum during the COVID-19 lockdown. The video series was created in support of Orchids: Attraction and Deception, a group exhibition which I participated in. That conversation, available on YouTube, paired me with an expert orchid breeder and was fascinating. I imagine the urge to reinvent imagery and objects is pretty common among artists. For me, it stems from years of transforming found objects from the streets into installations and collages. I wanted to make connections between them and use them to tell stories about our culture. I also find it surprising when the general public doesn’t see the beauty in everyday things and insists on creating ugly, thoughtless, and wasteful objects. I would never presume to tame nature—banish the thought.
Your pieces featured in Elemental Blues contain detailed watercolor on top of the cyanotype prints. As an artist, how do you use this mixed media approach to your advantage?
BDW: The impulse began on a trip to Narrowsburg, New York, where I admired an antique hand-tinted photograph in a shop. It was a bit overdone; the woman had silly pink rouge circles on her cheeks, and the whole palette was charmingly off. I couldn’t afford it, and so it lodged in my memory. At some point, the memory clicked into place, and I figured out how to incorporate it. I also realized that my love of color could help set me apart from other artists working with cyanotype.
You also often use bright, saturated tones for your overall practice. What draws you to these vibrant, almost unnatural, colors? What piece is most important to you (in this collection) that you want to highlight/spotlight, and why?
BDW: The colors are incredibly important. When I’m painting, I vacillate between intention and intuition. At a certain point, I have to let the color take me where it needs to go; that’s the sweet spot, when I’m in the zone. Combining natural and unnatural colors allows a picture to drift in and out of reality, giving me the opportunity to reintroduce—and personalize—somewhat everyday objects. Cyanotype is a Victorian process that produces prints with a timeless quality. Combining neon and pastel colors with more traditional hues firmly establishes the work within a contemporary context, or further obfuscates that notion of time, depending on one’s perspective. The works have equal importance.
Willow Simon (b. June 28th, 2005) is a rising sophomore at Wesleyan University, currently majoring in English and History, and planning on minoring in Middle Eastern Studies. She specializes in journalism and creative writing and has a passion for working in audio.
Griffin Museum of Photography – Winchester, Massachusetts
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