The Do Good Fund Library

May 2026

Here’s what we’ve been reading from The Do Good Fund Library lately!

After spending time with Kennedi Carter’s photographs in “The Water Bring We, The Water Wanna Take We Back,” we revisited Elliot Dudik’s book, “Road Ends in Water.” Dudik’s 2009-2010 photographs record the South Carolina Lowcountry’s deeply rooted culture and unique history, and reckon with the danger of obscurity posed by the expansion of U.S. Route 17.

“Ralph Eugene Meatyard: an Aperture Monograph” combines a chronological presentation of Meatyard’s photographs, observations and prose-poems by James Baker Hall, and a reminiscence by Guy Davenport that leaves us with a compelling portrait of the photographer and his practice; Davenport writes, “I only knew that he was after essence, not fact.”

In “Uncommon,” Elizabeth Matheson’s familiar North Carolina work is presented alongside landscapes, interiors, and self-portraits from her wanderings through the United States and Europe. “Uncommon” is a beautiful representation of the breadth of Matheson’s gentle, humorous, and curious photographs

Photographs in “Casey Joiner: Housekeeping” move between still lifes, interiors, and portraits — both real and imagined — reflecting the pain of separation, and the beauty and tenderness of remembrance. Copies of “Housekeeping” are available for purchase at the Do Good Fund Gallery for the duration of the exhibition, which will be on view in Columbus until June 6!

December 2025

We were pleased to receive a copy of The Vero Beach Museum of Art’s catalogue from their current exhibition, Double Portraits.

The exhibition, curated by Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell, features the work of 47 photographs from the Do Good Fund Collection including Shelby Lee Adams, Lucinda Bunnen, Michael Carlebach, Oraien Catledge, Maude Schuyler Clay, Ashleigh Coleman, Dennis Darling, Rineke Dijkstra, Carolyn Drake, William Ferris, Jill Frank, Peyton Fulford, Preston Gannaway, Emmet Gowin, William Greiner, Carlos Gustavo, Alex Harris, Cynthia Henebry, Emma Creighton Hopson, Birney Imes, Brittany Little, Lawson Little, Elizabeth Matheson, Jimmy Nicholson, Nicholas Nixon, Betty Press, Eli Reed, Sage Sohier, Magdalena Sol, Rosalind Fox Solomon, Mark Steinmetz, Michael Stipe, Burk Uzzle, and Eva Verbeeck.

Swindell writes in the catalog, “As I delved deeper into the collection, I noticed how often two figures appeared together and how the organic metaphor might be extended further to the double portrait—as a visual intertwining portrait, I realized, offered a lens through which to explore how photography renders connections—between people, between photographers and subjects, between viewers and images…There was a gravity in seeing two people—sometimes touching, sometimes apart—sharing a space with one another, and, across time, with viewers. It reminded me that photography, at its best, preserves not only likenesses but relationships: the invisible threads between lives.”

November 2025

In the spirit of “Southern Belle Redux: Images from The Do Good Fund curated by Emily Rena Willians”, this month’s selection of photo books from the Do Good Fund Library features four female photographers who utilize photography to address themes of femininity both explicitly and through the ability of their work to shape Southern Femininity.

“Liberty Theatre” by Rosalind Fox Solomon indexes 77 of Fox Solomon’s tritone images that explore race, class, and segregation in the American South from 1970s–1990s and includes an essay, “The Play of Freedoms”, by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa.

“Knit Club” by Carolyn Drake records Drake’s photographic collaboration with a group of women loosely calling themselves “Knit Club.” A short story, or, “semifictional essay” by Rebecca Bengal is tucked in the middle of 50 mysterious portraits and observations of the foreboding members and events of the Knit Club.

Kristine Potter’s monograph “Dark Waters” blends myth and history through black-and-white staged pictures of young women on the brink of trauma and images of forested or isolated bodies of water. Potter reflects on the themes of power and violence in nineteenth and twentieth century American “murder ballads”, questioning the disturbing history of violence against women.

In “Taken From Memory”, Sheron Rupp presents early color photographs that connect her biographical past to portraits of individuals from commonly disregarded rural areas and small towns in Arkansas, the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont; Appalachia in Tennessee and Kentucky, and her hometown in Mansfield, Ohio.

September 2025

This month’s selections from the Do Good Fund Library were made in the spirit of our current exhibition that features work from Mississippi and New Orleans based photographers Maude Schuyler Clay, Langdon Clay, and Sophia Clay.

We’re enjoying “Maude Schuyler Clay: Mississippi History” by Maude Schuyler Clay, William Greiner’s new monograph “ NEUTRAL GROUND: New Orleans 1990-2005”, photographs by Maude Schuyler Clay and poems by Ann Fisher-Wirth in “Mississippi”, “The Mississippi Gulf Coast” by Timothy T. Isbel , and “New Delta Rising” by Magdalena Solé.

August 2025

We’re working our way through Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists by Robert Hughes and Shell Castle: Portrait of a North Carolina House by Elizabeth Matheson, studying up on the work of Carl Martin in his eponymous monograph, and enjoying Bill Yates’ Sweet Heart Nights - Sweetheart Roller Skating Rink.

What We’re Reading

February 2025

Blackbird Dust: Essays, Poems, and Photographs, by Jonathan Williams

Wish You Were Here: Photos from the American South, from The Bitter Southerner

Rineke Dijkstra: Beach Portraits, by Rineke Dijkstra

Americans Seen, by Sage Sohier

What We’re Reading

January 2024

Passing Time by Sage Sohier
Sweetheart Roller Skating Rink by Bill Yates
Dark Waters by Kristine Potter