Anne Houde
I'm a recently retired biology professor and now I am a photographic artist and part-time instructor at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
When I was very young, perhaps seven, I declared I wanted to be a hermit and live inside a tree in the forest. After that, I was sure I wanted to be a naturalist, and spend my life in the woods learning about the natural history of living things. This all started when I was recuperating from a concussion in a small town hospital in Vermont and my mother brought me some field guides to help identify the trees and birds outside the window. As a teenager in the 1970's, I had a small collection of natural history books: field guides to birds, trees, flowers, some current and some much older ones. During my summers in Vermont, I was indeed a naturalist, spending lots of time outdoors with field guides, making bird lists, and bringing back my enthusiasm to New York City to convert a small group of my friends to become a band of teenage girl birders. Ultimately, I became a biology professor, teaching and doing research that involved making thousands of photographs of the endlessly varying color patterns of guppies.
So perhaps it makes sense that my photography reflects a fascination with “endless forms most beautiful” as well as a deep resonance with antique natural history books and their illustrations.