Heidi Davies has long contemplated creating an environment where she could invite others to her private world. She partly wanted an emporium celebrating the lost language of objects, things made by and for people as human beings, not consumers of big box disposables. But if it was to be a retail space, it also needed to be a working studio where she could continue to make art surrounded by the often-overlooked beautiful things that can insert a transformative experience into the most hum-drum of days.
And above all else, the space needed to celebrate photography in a living, human place, not on the sterile white walls
of a gallery.
Although Heidi’s first love is photography, she has a solid—some would say enviable—background in Asian art, textiles and furnishings through her family’s global network of stores, collectors, and dealers.
For a self-described mountain woman from the Northwest, she’s traveled most of the world, and in the early years of her family’s enterprise, they lived for extended periods in Europe and Asia building the foundations of their network.
To say she has a diverse education is understatement. Thus far, it has ranged from total immersion in Tibetan language and culture in a nunnery in Nepal to studying photography with Ansel Adams’s protégé Howard Huff. After she married and began a family of her own, Heidi’s photographic eye shifted from the exotic locales of her earlier work to intimate portraiture of women in their most private moments. As her focus continued to weave around women and all the roles they play in the world, her exploration of technique began to incorporate not only traditional, painterly media, but also all of the toys and tools of the digital and electronic realms.
Despite being up to speed on the technical revolutions in photography, her work remains grounded in the deeply personal and the profoundly human.
Heidi offers private commission shoots, and to quote one of her clients, “My experience with you was truly a celebration of myself as a woman–it was comfortable, liberating and empowering–an experience I would recommend to anyone. You have a wonderful eye, as a woman and an artist, and are able to bring out the most in your subjects without compromising a true state of personal being.”
H. Davies Studio & Shop, which features custom photography specializing in nude work, mixed media art, antiques and home décor, is located at 930 NW Brooks St. (on the promenade behind Wall St., next to Bend Bungalow). www.heididavies.com, 541-241-6099.
