By Christina Mehr
Immediately when you walk into the art exhibit, you are taken into the life and work of Lora Webb Nichols. Located in the Reese Bullen Gallery at Cal Poly Humboldt, Nichols’ black and white photography is displayed for all to see. Her work covers candid portrait shots of those around her.
The massive archive of prints has been preserved through the volunteer efforts of Nancy Anderson, Victor Anderson, and Nicole Jean Hill.
Hill is a Professor of Art at Cal Poly Humboldt and the chair of the department of art and film. Her area of expertise is in photography and she teaches photography classes and professional practices in art. Hill is also the co-curator of the Lora Webb Nichols collections.
“When I first dove into the archive, I didn’t know what was [there] because it wasn’t actually viewable yet,” Hill said. “Only a very small portion of it was accessible to the public. It was kind of a leap of faith, but I was intrigued by the fact that it was an archive made by a female photographer who got a camera at the age of 16 in 1899 and saved 24,000 negatives.”
Over the course of some time, Hill has worked on digitizing the photographs, organizing the corresponding text, recovering the photographer’s diaries and letters, and collaborating with the Grand Encampment Museum and the American Heritage Center to secure a permanent home for the negatives.
Lora Webb Nichols was a photographer, businesswoman and homemaker living on the Wyoming frontier in the 20th century. She got her first camera at the young age of 16 and over the course of her lifetime, she produced a grand number of 24,000 negatives. The images she captured are about the domestic, social, and economic aspects of the frontier of south-central Wyoming.
“When you’re 16 years old and you get a camera, you’re unfiltered, and I was excited to see what that would be like,” Hill said. “Then, once I was actually physically able to see what was in the archive, it was even more exciting than I could have imagined in terms of the variety of subject matter and Lora’s skill as the photographer.”
The most eye-catching work of the exhibit were the two cork boards with many printed images pinned across them both. On a pedestal below sat a book filled with many more photographs.
More of Nichols’ photographs and writing can be found online through the American Heritage Center or in person at the Grand Encampment Museum.
“I love that this art exhibit has brought people to campus that otherwise would not come to see an art exhibit,” Hill said. “It has a multigenerational attraction to it.”
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