Kathie Florsheim

Kathie Florsheim, of Providence, RI, is an independent photographer whose work has been shown in museums and galleries nationally and internationally and is included in various collections both public and private. For many years, she photographed at Narragansett Town Beach, in Narragansett, RI documenting how we go to the beach and probing the sociology of what we do when we are there, for her series, A Day at the Beach. At present, Kathie continues work on her series On the Edge (OTE). These images evolved from photographs she made during an artist’s residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2002. This series of documentary photographs explores the relationship between the manmade and natural environment, and the conflict between public and private land use along the coastline in the Northeast. For this project, she photographs along the coast in Rhode Island, on The Cape and in Maine. Concurrent with OTE, Kathie is working on a project called Living on the Edge (LOTE). LOTE examines a small, seasonal coastal community in Rhode Island as its shoreline recedes, and its residents contemplate erosion, storm damage and sea level rise. LOTE developed out of general observations of the coastline in the OTE series, as a means of getting a more intimate look at a specific community. Kathie’s professional honors include a fellowship with the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources, a Visual Art Sea Grant award given by the University of Rhode Island, a CASE Media Fellowship awarded by the University of Maine, an artist’s residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Hannum-Warner Travel Fellowship from Mt. Holyoke College. She earned an M.F.A. in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied with Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan. She also earned a B.A in Modern European History from Mt. Holyoke College.