For many, this has been a very difficult year. As I read the Artist Statements and looked at the images submitted for the Me&Eve Grant, I was struck by how often the words depression, loss, grief, heartbreak, and time were repeated to describe the work. Some wonderful projects did celebrate nature, childhood, the body, and the peace that comes with acceptance, but overwhelmingly the submitted work was about struggle.

I feel privileged to have been allowed to see the bearing of so many souls and how making the images were often the antidote. It was an intimate experience.

It was not an easy task to choose only one project to receive this Grant. I was very impressed to see the diverse ways the photographers chose to tell their stories and to create images that reflected states of being that are often more felt than seen.

For this fourth Me&Eve Grant I have chosen Blue by Heather Evans Smith.

Blue is a poetic essay that explores the personal experience of depression in mid-life. Smith created a melancholic yet tender essay that explores the complex feelings around aging and the death of her father as a way to help her find “a new place amongst the loss.” These images were also a comfort to me as they so gently embraced the sadness that can arise during the very universal changes that mid-life can bring to us all.

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time with all of the artists who shared their images and their hearts. Thank you.

- Sarah Leen, Founder & Editor, Visual Thinking Collective