Delving into the past has long been a passion for photographer Ellen Toby Slotnick. It began with photographing on archaeological excavations, and then photographing the recovered artifacts. Years later, Slotnick is still photographing what has been left behind: abandoned churches, schools, farmhouses and the artifacts they hold. Fine art photographer, Slotnick started out as an archaeological photographer in Israel documenting excavations and photographing finds for publication. Her current work, Traces, reflects her early interest in what is left behind, in this case, in Rugby ND where individual farms are rapidly disappearing. Slotnick’s fascination with Rugby began in 2013 and called her back for the next three years.

Ellen Toby Slotnick’s  Traces will be featured in the Griffin Museum’s Atelier Gallery at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, April 11 – June 11, 2017. A reception will take place on April 11 from 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM. Traces runs parallel to the theater’s productions of “Gabriel” and “MacBeth and I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spagetti.”

“Each vacated farmhouse, church or school I came upon was vacated for basically the same reason. Economics,” says Ellen Toby Slotnick. She goes on to say, “The business of farming has become such that it is far more cost-effective to farm square miles rather than square acres. So consortiums were formed and fields were planted where families had lived. The families moved into town. The remnants of the lives that inhabited the structures make each and every building tell its own story,” she says.

Ellen’s work is held at the Danforth Museum of Art, Newton-Wellesley Hospital and in private collections internationally. She is a 2016 Finalist in Critical Mass, an international portfolio online competition.

Ellen holds a BS degree in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. She also holds an MBA from Simmons College in Boston.