Port Townsend based photographer Kathy Fridstein has just published a new book of photographs of the three forts (Flagler, Worden and Casey) of north Puget Sound, called “Landscapes of Forgotten Forts”. It’s an impressive work, including the poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon. There will be a launch event with curator Kathleen Garrett and historian David Hansen at Taps at the Guardhouse at Fort Worden on October 13th at 5:30.
I interviewed Kathy recently to catch up as we first met in Seattle around 1980. The following was edited for clarity and brevity.
AL BERGSTEIN: So, Welcome Kathy. It’s been a long time since you and I knew each other as young photographers in Seattle. Looking through your CV and all the great exhibitions and teaching you’ve done since the 1980s, it looks like you’ve made a great career doing your artwork.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Well, I have in a sense, but I feel like I took a long break from exhibiting and getting my work out. However, I never stopped photographing. My priority was to spend time raising our kids while my husband worked long hours at our restaurant where he was the chef. I taught photography at the Bush School for 15 years, and then I ran my own graphic design firm. I’d say now I’m doing full-time art, and it feels great, you know, to be back into it. This is my newest chapter.
AL BERGSTEIN: Yes, those of us who start out in the arts have to see if we can make it full time at art, and the answer for me and you and others is like, well, not really, we couldn’t.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Yeah, for me it never brought in enough money, I thought I could juggle it all, but I couldn’t. But I kept photographing.
AL BERGSTEIN: So, speaking of which, I haven’t seen a lot of the newer work yet. I’ve seen some of the ones from the fort, from your website, and you’ve teamed up with a with a poet. I am not familiar with Kelli Russell Agodon .
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: I began photographing the forts about 18 years ago, when my husband came to Fort Worden in 2008 for work the first time. For a long time, I had been photographing ancient archaeological sites, exploring the relationship between our knowledge of ancient ruins in their original state and how they appear in their surroundings today.
We had just come back from visiting Tikal in Guatemala, when my husband began work at Fort Worden. I began roaming around the bunkers at Fort Worden. The landscape felt like a contemporary ruin which was intriguing to me.
The way I begin a body of work is I just start photographing what speaks to me, and then I think about why am I doing this, what does it all mean? My fathers’ stories from WWII also influenced why I wanted to continue photographing and researching the forts. I had this great photo album of his that documented his experiences in WWII. He was an amateur photographer. He photographed a lot.
I began researching and spending a lot of time in all three forts, Fort Worden, Fort Flagler, and Fort Casey. I would photograph at different seasons, as well as come back at different times of the day to experience different lighting. About eight years in, I felt, I wanted a poet involved. I thought a poets’ words could help convey the meditative, poetic feeling that I experienced when wandering through the woods and photographing the bunkers.
I have a friend in Seattle who’s published books, I asked her “Do you know any poets?” She recommended Kelli, along with a few others. Kelli was at the top of the list. I can’t even remember who the others were. I called Kelli, and she was interested. At that time, she had published a couple of books and since we have been working together, she has published 2 books with Copper Canyon Press, Accidental Devotions is the most recent one, published in May.
She had also done residencies at Fort Worden and planned to write her first set of poems about the forts at a Centrum residency in November of 2016.
So, that began a wonderful collaboration. It was about 10 years ago now. I sent Kelli images and she responded with poems.
Her poems explore the history of the fort, personify the soldiers who were stationed there, and interpret what it is like to be there now, juxtaposed with the current affairs of our country. She began writing right after Trump won the election in 2016; she was devasted. The poems took on a different direction than initially planned. With her wonderful use of words, she writes about how we have lost our country, but for example, as one poem ends, “yet light still slips through”, she almost always ends with hope.
So, that’s how that came about, and we’ve just really gotten along and like working together. I can’t tell you how wonderful it’s been, and her poems have added so much to the book.
AL BERGSTEIN: When did you cross that Rubicon and say, “Wow, this is now a book.” How did that come about?
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: I’d say that was about four or five years ago. I had all these poems and these images, I had thousands, I photographed a lot. I decided I needed to edit down and it just made sense to make it into a book. Then I began thinking it really needed some historical background. I spent a lot of time at the Coast Artillery Museum, and I am so sad that that is closing.
AL BERGSTEIN: Right. That is bad. I’m sorry it’s gone.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Greg Hagge, who was the director, has been so helpful over all these years. He let me go through their historical photographs. I scanned a lot of the images.
AL BERGSTEIN: Great you were able to do that now that it’s closed.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Yes, I have included those images. Greg is like a walking encyclopedia. It’s sad to lose him, but on the other hand, he’s our age, and I think he probably was ready to retire. There’s nobody to take over.
AL BERGSTEIN: Yeah.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: And I was so sad, I didn’t realize, but the other person who I worked with, the assistant, who was always there, Ron Raplee, just passed away, and I’m still getting over that, I had no idea. Suddenly he was gone.
AL BERGSTEIN: Yeah, it’s true. Very hard.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Now that I had historical images along with Kelli’s poems and my photographs, I began editing and compiling it to create a few prototype books. My father’s photo album with the metal cover was an inspiration. I thought it made sense to create this prototype book with a rusted metal cover mirroring all the rusted metal in the bunkers. I watched a webinar from a bindery about Smyth sewn bindings. After the webinar I contacted the presenter, sharing my idea for the prototypes and asked him if he could do a small run of 1-3 books. He thought it was such a great idea, a rusted metal cover with interior pages of a photo book.
AL BERGSTEIN: Wow, fun project!
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: He thought it was very cool. He worked in a bindery in Arizona and said he would do it pro bono if they could advertise the finished book. I wanted it to be an exposed Smyth sewn binding.
AL BERGSTEIN: Right. I’ve seen those.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: So I did that. He helped me to get it all together, but, that was just a prototype to try to get a publisher.
AL BERGSTEIN: Sure.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Someone gave me an introduction to the publisher, Bruce Rutledge of Chin Music Press in Seattle. I showed him the book and he was interested in working together to publish it. This was the spring of 2025. I still wanted more in the book. About that time I had heard about the Friends of Fort Worden Oral History Project.
AL BERGSTEIN: Right.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: I thought it would be nice to include some of those transcripts in the book. I spent time last year working on that. I also asked Kathleen Garrett if she would write the foreword and reached out to David Hansen to write a historical essay. Both agreed and their essays are included in the finished book. Tom Eykemans designed the cover.
AL BERGSTEIN: Ok.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Bruce Rutledge and the staff of Chin Music Press have been wonderful to work with. Are you familiar with Chin Music Press?
AL BERGSTEIN: No, I don’t know them.
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Their bookstore is located in the lower level of the Pike Place Market. They publish a variety of books, all interesting and wonderful. They use the same distributor as Copper Canyon, Consortium Distribution.
And that’s where we are right now, Oh, I did not yet mention that I worked with I/O color in Seattle, a color management group. They did all the pre-press. I provided them with match prints, and we proofed everything at IO. They partner with a printer in China where it was printed and bound.
AL BERGSTEIN: I saw the picture on the cover, are all the shots color, or are there black and white as well?
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: The black and white are the historical images, my photographs are all color.
AL BERGSTEIN: And I know people will probably ask the question. I’m not really into it as much, but so, technically, what were you using for your camera? What do you favor these days?
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: When you work on something for 18 years technology changes along the way. It’s digital this time. I still use analog, but for color I use digital. I went through three different cameras. I reshot some images last February, because the original images were not high enough resolution, Since the book contains many photos that are two-page spreads, I needed high resolution for these large images.
I had previously used Canon Mark III’s, and always used a tripod, and now I am using the Sony RX10 IV, mirrorless, because it’s lighter, but I still always carry and use a tripod. As I have gotten older I don’t want to carry heavy cameras.
AL BERGSTEIN: Of course. I’m the same way. Well, Kathy it’s been great to catch up after all this time and see the wonderful new work you’ve done. I’m looking forward to the event with Imprint Bookstore at Taps at the Guardhouse at Fort Worden on October 13th at 5:30. You will be doing this with curator Kathleen Garrett and historian David Hansen?
KATHY FRIDSTEIN: Yes, I will be in dialogue with Kathleen Garrett who wrote the foreword and David Hanson who contributed the historical essay. Kelli probably won’t be able to make that one, but we will be doing a Seattle launch event at Elliott Bay Book Company on Sunday October 18th at 7PM.
Other Launch events:
Eagle Harbor Bookstore
Kathy Fridstein with Kelli Russell Agodon and Corbet Curfman
Wednesday October 28, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Eagle Harbor Books
157 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Kathy’s website is found at: https://kathyfridstein.com
Kelli Russell Agodon’s website is found at: https://www.agodon.com/index.html
