Quiet / Ilka Hartmann

C-Print. 8x10 inches. Printed in an edition of 30, with a numbered certificate signed by Ilka Hartmann.

To help us celebrate our third printing of On the Mesa: An Anthology of Bolinas Writing, we have had the fortunate opportunity to publish this beautiful and poignant photograph by Ilka Hartmann. 

Taken by Hartmann in the rural town of Bolinas, CA in 1971, the photograph encapsulates a sensibility and way of life that was, and still is, protected in the town. The annonymous hand-painted sign, hanging in someone's yard, has been posted for all visitors to see, sharing the hearts of the people who live there:

"QUIET / APPROACHING / SENSITIVE / COMMUNITY" 

Ilka Hartmann was born in Hamburg, Germany during World War II and came to the Bay Area as a young woman in 1964. Soon she began to photograph most of the great social movements of the second part of the twentieth century in the United States, from the Anti-War Movement, to the Black Panther Party, the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island, the United Farm Workers, the Anti-Nuclear Movement and Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Marches in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area.

Ilka was more than a passive observer of activists and their causes, rather she was warmly embraced by and invited into these communities, thus giving her rare access to a side of their lives and activities not represented in the general media. In 1969, she began to focus her camera lens on the people and events of her small alternative community on the Northern California Coast; documenting its history and the people whom she knows well and has seen grow up, mature and age. Some of the most notable early photos from this work are illustrated in the 1976 book The Town That Fought to Save Itself.

In 1970, moved by the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island, she began to chronicle Native Americans' lives in the cities of the Bay Area and on reservations around the country. She cares deeply for these communities and they have become the main focus of her work. Ilka continues her work today documenting moments which reflect her heartfelt and unique perspective of people and their efforts toward recognition and social justice.

To see more of Ilka's work and read more about her incredible life, please visit her website, here.