North Dakota's only female photographer specializing in wet-plate collodion photography will close her downtown studio in early October, marking the end of a unique artistic chapter in the region. Kary Janousek, who founded Old School Collodion six years ago, will vacate her expansive third-floor studio at the historic Dakota Business College building at 11 8th St. S. on October 6th.
Janousek attributes her departure to multiple factors, including the pursuit of better funding opportunities by relocating her business to Minnesota and a personal need to pause and recalibrate after six years of intensive creative output. "I've run really hard for the last six years," she explains. "I need to chill a bit." Her decision also stems from changes in building ownership that will affect her current arrangement.
The building's new landlord, Jim Newman, great-grandson of the original Dakota Business College founders, plans to organize and renovate the long-neglected 124-year-old property to attract more tenants and make the historic structure profitable. Newman anticipates dividing Janousek's 3,400-square-foot studio space, for which she currently pays only $600 per month, to accommodate additional artists and retail spaces. Workers will also need access through her studio to reach the building's north wing, which is currently filled with unused furniture and requires preparation for future tenants.
Janousek's remarkably affordable rental rate had been established with the previous owner, Lee Watkins, a Fargo artist and architect who was Newman's uncle and died in April 2024. After the business school closed in 1978, Watkins had envisioned creating an affordable center for artists in the building and helped establish the Dakota Fine Art on 8th fine art gallery and artists' collaborative. Janousek understands the new owner's business logic, saying, "I was one person who had a whole floor. I get the logic behind it."
When Janousek first moved to the space in July 2021, she recognized it as an exceptional opportunity, especially after learning that some downtown businesses pay up to $5,000 monthly for comparable spaces. "This was a blessing, and I'm just happy with the time I've had it," she reflects, standing in the sprawling studio with its 15-foot-high ceilings, numerous windows, and hardwood floors. Newman has committed to continuing his uncle's mission of providing affordable artist space while finding sustainable ways to maintain the 1884 structure with significant deferred maintenance issues. "I don't really want to raise their rents. The only way to cover repairs is to rent more space," Newman explained, adding that he has promised to keep the project running for two years before determining whether to continue or sell.
Despite some challenges, including the third-floor location that required carrying heavy photographic equipment up multiple flights of stairs, Janousek's studio proved ideal for wet-plate collodion photography. The historic collodion process, dating back to the 1850s, requires abundant natural light, which the studio's 18 nine-foot-tall windows provided perfectly. The technique involves coating glass or metal plates with light-sensitive collodion solution, immersing them in silver nitrate baths, and exposing and developing the plates while the emulsion remains wet—all within a crucial 15-minute window.
While Janousek has observed more people attempting this specialized photography form, most don't persist beyond three years. "They usually don't pass the three-year mark," she notes. "Just because it's not very profitable, it's super expensive and it's very complicated, so people enjoy it for a while, get it out of their system and then quit." However, Janousek's dedication has produced remarkable achievements over six years, including working with the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation's annual Chautauqua gathering and creating the first ambrotype of Theodore Roosevelt National Park's landscape.
Her accomplishments include embarking on a "Silver Lining" tour across North Dakota and South Dakota, collaborating with county and state historical sites and museums to capture significant locations while delivering lectures in period dress. Her work has been archived in six museums, including the State Historical Society of North Dakota in Bismarck, and she has showcased her creative photography in 12 solo exhibitions across galleries and museums. In 2023, she self-published "The Heart's Performance," a fine art photography book featuring her collodion work.
"I'm not sure how many of these things I could've done in such a short period of time if it hadn't been for the studio I was given space in, to be honest," Janousek reflects. Unfortunately, some historical societies she has collaborated with have experienced funding reductions, prompting her hope to find better funding sources in Minnesota. Her collodion wet-plate process gives even contemporary scenes a distinctive vintage quality, as demonstrated in her photographs of the Dakota Business College building in Fargo's historic SOMA District.
Since Watkins' death, Janousek had anticipated her time in the studio was limited. "I've been thinking about leaving for six months, but I talked it over with my husband and I thought, 'No, just wait it out. It's so perfect. Wait until they kick you out,'" she admits. This led her to begin working on her 2026 exhibition "Head Space," which will also become her second self-published book, starting in September 2024.
For the "Head Space" series, Janousek positioned models within the studio more as elements of the overall composition rather than central focal points, with the images emphasizing the studio space and natural window light equally with the human subjects. Her collodion wet-plate portraits typically possess a gothic, somber, sometimes otherworldly quality, with subjects rarely smiling due to the difficulty of maintaining perfect stillness during long exposure times. "I wanted to convey with the last series made there how light and space have characterized my work, can affect emotions and how the history of the building comes through in the energy of the final image," she explains.
Before departing the Eighth Street location, Janousek will host one final event: a clown school with Aimee Klein on October 4-5, with interested participants able to contact aimeesqueezeboxklein379gmail.com. She will also hold an open studio from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on October 3rd, welcoming visitors who wish to see her work and bid farewell to this unique chapter in North Dakota's artistic landscape.
