Chaffee Featured Artist, Denise Letendre

Denise Letendre

Sepia/Vintage-Style Photographs

Denise Letendre is originally from suburban Connecticut and graduated from the University of Hartford with a BFA in painting/illustration. For the past 20-plus years, she has been living and working in Vermont.

Although her background is in painting, Denise makes pictures primarily with a camera these days and is inspired by the light of the changing seasons, the rural landscape, and the architecture of Vermont. With a love of exploring and a persistent sense of curiosity, a great day for Denise is poking around old houses, barns, and back roads with her camera to discover inspiration for images.

For Denise it’s like a search-and-find or like looking for treasure. Pictures are a record of her constant curiosity and rambling exploration, like individual time capsules. Mostly they are a tribute to the simplicity of everyday quietude and the poetry of light. She said, “I find myself drawn to dusty corners, weathered siding, cluttered nooks, and little-used roads. I am always looking for how the light sneaks in through cracks, or how it blazes over a tree line. When I travel the dirt roads banked by cornfields, through charming towns that have seen better days, by old barns dappled in light — it resonates deeply. It’s this experience that I hope my photographs express; the instant when you stumble on something beautiful or something true that catches your breath for a second.”