In 2021, artists Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher started photographing people in rural and urban communities around the United States for Portrait of US, part of Nomadic Photo Ark, their traveling photo studio. Massillon Museum presented several of their images, including some taken in Stark County, in an exhibition in 2024.
From the museum and the artists:
Portrait of US is a continually evolving audiovisual chronicle of the United States, an archive of over 500 portraits and stories to date, collected by photographer Monica Jane Frisell and audio recorder and editor Adam Scher. Each story is a snapshot of one ordinary person sharing something intimately with two seeming strangers. The snapshots, when threaded together, produce a mosaic of what binds us together collectively as Americans.
The artists describe themselves as “collectors of faces and stories.” Frisell believes that analog photography brings intentionality to each and every photograph in a world that is fast-paced and overstimulated. Shooting with a 1940s 8×10 Kodak Master Field Camera, each portrait is a slow, committed moment between subject and photographer. Frisell and Scher have been entrusted with telling very personal stories during the past two years. They have been present to listen to and create portraits of individuals grappling with health problems, issues of sexual or cultural identity, and body image, as well as those experiencing grief, the pressures of starting a business, or the process of becoming a parent. They have been present to record and share the stories of people handling the impacts of addiction, sobriety, faith, politics, giving recollections of important personal memories like a first kiss, or simply sharing what binds someone historically to the place in which they live. When given the time, each person has something to share from their life that can help us as Americans find what binds us, instead of what separates us.
We live in a time marked by division, shouting matches, and thirty-second highlight reels. This archive finds a space to hold the slower, quieter stories and aims to remind us of the strength, resilience, and the commonalities of ordinary people across the United States. These everyday moments are what Portrait of US is all about.
There haven’t been any updates on the artists’ Instagram or Substack accounts since 2025, when they were in the process of renovating a school bus, but hopefully there will be soon.