Hilary's CV

Hilary F. Marckx is a California photographer and a photographer of California. He moved to California in 1952 when he was almost nine years old because of health problems, when the doctors told his parents that he would only live another month if they remained in the moist climate of the Puget Sound area. Now many healthy years later, he claims this state as his own, and has spent much of his adult life recording its wonders on film.

Hilary discovered a passion for photography in 1957 when, at the age of fourteen, a friend invited him to come over and look at his Christmas present. Down in a basement, in a closet, on an old door set up between two chairs was a Kodak photographic kit. Hilary says that down in that makeshift darkroom, he watched a photographic image develop-out in the solution, and his stomach did a roll. He knew from that moment he would have to be a photographer. He went out, withdrew his life savings of $125.00 and bought an old Solar enlarger with its lens bolted to a tin can and with his father's ancient Argus Color Camera and a Brownie Starflash, began his quest for beauty and truth.

Between 1966 and 1969 Hilary studied photography under the West Coast photographer Glen Fishback, himself a student of the great Carmel photographer Edward Weston. Under Glen Fishback, Hilary learned an even deeper love for photography, the quest for excellence and beauty, and the power of a well-seen image.

Hilary worked in both advertising and documentary photography between 1969 and 1981. Then, in 1981, he turned his camera exclusively towards documentary landscape. In 1988, needing to answer some questions he had concerning the relationship among his art, the nature he photographed, and the nature of God, he returned to school to earn a Ph. D. in Theology and the Arts. He now understands his work as being in the nexus of Spirit and Image, and his photographs reflect the beauty of the Sacred as it imbues the seen world.

Hilary has chosen the state of California to create images because it is diverse and beautiful. It is the state where he found his health. It is the state where circumstances placed him on a mountain-side in mid-winter, and he experienced that Presence which is ultimate holiness. California's granitic rock and Jeffery pines, its rivulets and wild flowers, its high wind clouds, the smell of duff in a late California summer, its valleys and the deep mast of an oak forest, the California coastline both gentle and rugged: all these might be found in other states, but never quite like in California. Hilary claims that the very longitude and latitude of California positions its sun to give a specific and almost mystical light. He says that all this may be nothing more than a terminal case of "projection" on his part, but so what, he's a photographer, after all!

He believes that the images of Beauty he presents to his viewers in some way are atavistic memories of a time when Spirit and Divinity, Matter and Humanity, co-existed as one in loving communion, and as such, the images themselves become Icons moving the viewer into the depth of the Sacred. Because each of his images is conceived and brought forth out of a deeply meditative photographic state, Hilary strongly suggests his viewers approach each print in the same way―prayerfully. Hilary contends that his images, because they gather divinity as they gather the reflected light that transforms film into photography, can be used as focal points for deep contemplation.

He has been in over thirty one-person exhibitions since 1969, and in over fifty group shows. His work is in numerous public collections including the Bancroft Library, University of California, Pictorial Collections: Berkeley, CA.; the California State Library, Special Collections Division: Sacramento, CA.; the Crocker Art Museum: Sacramento, CA.; and the San Francisco Museum of Art: San Francisco, CA. His images have appeared in Creation, EarthLight, Interview Magazine, The Pacific, Pacific Business, Sacramento Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Time. Marckx has taught at New College of California, S.F., is adjunct faculty at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, and does numerous workshops and retreats. His degrees are: B.A. New College of California (Humanities), M.A. Pacific School of Religion (Theology and the Arts), and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (Theology and the Arts).

As to his social location Marckx says, "I am white, male, almost sixty, and have been married to Cherie since 1965. We have two children, and three grandchildren. I have worked on a dairy farm, hauled hay, driven tractor, picked peaches, pears, and apricots, sold brooms and brushes door-to-door, worked for the State of California as a clerk, driven a delivery van, and been a tree-trimmer. I am also a song-writer. I play guitar and perform with Cherie. I straddle two denominations: I have standing in both the Northern California, Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Northern California-Nevada. I currently serve the Geyserville Christian Church. I started off as the son of a Fundamentalist minister, then joined the Roman Catholic Church in the early seventies. I have worshiped with pagans, been called to communion with a blue oak, prayed in tongues with Charismatics, stayed too long in my head while in the academy, been led, photograph by photograph, by the resident "spirit" through a "deserted" Native American village, and danced to the morning sun after a cold night in the high Sierra: I believe the One known as Sacred, or Holy One, was part of each of these experiences and has interwoven my life and speaks through each of my images. Life is Life!"

Emerging photographers seek out Hilary's advice and many drive miles to meet him and hear his evaluation of their work. He has given private photography lessons and taught photography since the early seventies. He considers his own greatest successes those students who now have their own successful careers in photography.

Hilary's photographic images are also sought by serious collectors, and his work may be obtained on-line at hilaryfmarckx.com, and, when his time permits, by appointment for private showings in his home gallery.