The Kathleen Paco Cadman Portrait of the World: Wow.

Poco Cadman and her friend Kaymenn

In the 10 minutes of in-depth research I do for these things, I found this really fun blog post about the featured photographer at Union Station this month: Kathleen Paco Cadman.

Check it out (click) because it says a lot more than I have time or space to.

Great stuff. Briefly, Paco is a nursing instructor who's done more than 100 countries, traveling, teaching nursing to indigenous health workers, having one heck of a life.

And now she's settled here in Ogden?

Yeah, she gets that a lot.

"Burnout is a real issue" in her profession, she said, and teaching nursing at Weber State University, tenure track, gives her a bit of stability. Heck, she's buying a house.

Doesn't hurt that her parents live here.

She did a cross-country bicycle trip with her dad earlier this year, from Vancouver to Tijuana that got written up in the Standard-Examiner (click) a few months back.  Now she's settling into her job as an assistant professor at Weber State.

A few of scores of her pictures from around the world

Her travels as an instructor and adventurer took her to more than 100 countries around the world, and everywhere she went, of course she took pictures. Most of them are portraits of the folks she's lived with or worked with, but some are chance encounters here and there, everywhere from China to Madagascar.

This month her work is on exhibit in the Myra Powell Gallery at Ogden's Union Station this month. She collaborated with Nurture the Creative Mind, a station tenant that works with local children, to display her work.

Paco said she really didn't do a lot for the exhibit except hand NCM director Amir Jackson a flash drive with all her images on it. She said he selected more than 100 images from the several thousand she gave him, decided on the display method, made the prints and put up the show.

A modern day slave 

Amir did a lovely job of mounting the images on old metal shelves, which contrast well with the black and white prints he made of Paco's images. The faces look out at you with interest, curiosity, sorrow, pain and friendliness.

They're a huge contrast, Paco said. She pointed to one, an old woman holding her hands up. "She's a modern day slave. She's never known the concept of being paid for your work." The woman lives in Uthamapalayam, India, a country I bet you thought was too advanced to still have slavery.

 And just over on the next frame, she said, is a picture of a fabulously wealthy Chinese actress.

Bob Cadman, cycling buddy, father

Is she done traveling?  Doubtful. She's got to put some work into her job at WSU to get tenure, but I heard her saying something about a possible Peace Corps gig somewhere. We'll see.

So come look at her pictures.

The show is up through Dec. 2. Myra Powell Gallery is on Union Station's second floor, just down from the station library where I work. Admission is free, and if you come down on Tuesday or Thursday morning be sure to stop in at the library and say hello.