A native Michigander, Marilyn grew up in Richland and attended college at Western Michigan University, where she graduated with a degree in mathematics. She worked a couple of years in data processing in Mendon before relocating to northern Michigan.

Although “artist” didn’t show up on her horizon until many years later, Hoogstraten has always been creative - choosing projects in school, activities and employment that were outlets for her artistic expression.  She picked up a 35mm SLR when her girls were young and, along with capturing their activities, she spent weekends setting up still lifes on her kitchen table and carrying a camera with her where ever she went.

When she retired from a 30 year career in public service, she enjoyed a few years in an “encore career” as a wedding and portrait photographer, but now she creates images only for herself. Although she still captures the occasional “grand landscape” she is more often found crouching over an abstract, a detail of that grand view.  She seeks out the often unnoticed pieces of the world around her, the unusual, the less than perfect, the forlorn, and finds beauty in the mundane.  Although she began traveling more extensively after retiring, she still makes the majority of her images in her own backyard - Northern Michigan.

Artist’s Statement:   My work is not photo journalism or representational, although there is a valid and valuable place for both of those. Photography is an aesthetic experience for me. I seldom travel to a place (near or far) to capture a specific landscape or iconic image. I can go anywhere, even my backyard, especially my backyard, and find something that speaks to my emotions, celebrating the shape, the form, the design of the space around me, and collecting through photography things that delight me.  If successful post processing helps capture the emotion I experienced and, hopefully, engages the viewer with a similar response.