Farmers' Market Treasure: Diana Lauderdale

The Charleston Farmers’ Market is something locals and tourists alike enjoy every Saturday morning downtown in Marion Square. By 8:00 a.m., Marion Square smells almost good enough to eat. Doughnuts are fried right before your eyes. Crepes are made to order. Later in the day, bahn mi sandwiches make their appearance after you’ve worked up an appetite selecting your produce for the week. If you haven’t yet made this a Saturday morning tradition you are missing out.

For me, as a local, I’m there for the food vendors, like Roots Ice Cream, and the fabulous local produce. Artists’ booths normally don’t catch my eye. Yesterday, my mother and I stumbled across the work of a photographer, Diana Lauderdale, and we walked away with quite a bit of her work.

Lauderdale’s artwork is distinctive. She simply sees things that you or I wouldn’t. There’s a degree of rawness to each snapshot that brings you to the very moment it was taken—and in some instances the birth of the object itself. The pieces I selected are part of her This and That of Thine Eye,  Americana and In Other Words projects. Lauderdale finds a way to bring the subject of each photograph to life. She’s particularly gifted with color photographs.

I’m very excited to have two of my four photographs already framed. I’m even more excited to be supporting a local artist. In speaking with Diana, she’s absolutely a character. A wounded bird with gumption and an artist’s personality.