Jeanne Hansen

Jeanne bought her first camera at ten with money earned from picking strawberries in Skagit Valley, Washington where she was born and raised.  Trained at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara for one year then transferred to San Francisco Art Institute and in 1982 received a B.F.A. in Photography.  During the 1980’s she lived and worked in the Bay Area, contributed to the social and political movements of the day through her photography with work published in local magazines and neighborhood newspapers. Her more personal projects were exhibited in alternative galleries and illustrated her mission to push back boundaries and explore the counterculture and her vision.
In 1990 Jeanne returned to Skagit Valley where as a single mother she raised her son. She continued to explore her intimate relation to rural farm life, the surrounding environment, and the people through her photography, with her work being exhibited in galleries, museums, public spaces, and in private collections. She contributed to the book and exhibition Harvesting the Light, which advocates for preservation of farmland in Skagit Valley. In Bellingham, Washington, she worked at a photo lab and the Whatcom Museum of History and Art specializing in black and white printing. In 2013 moving back to San Francisco now she is working on a multi-media project about the alternative art, music, and political scene during the punk heyday of the 1980's.