Writers Project melds poetry, photography in 'Thin Places'

QUEENSBURY, New York (Oct. 20, 2025) — SUNY Adirondack’s Writers Project will explore the intersection of imagery and words with photographer MaryEllen Hendricks and poet Kathleen McCoy in “Thin Places” at 12:40 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27. 

According to ancient Celtic beliefs, “thin places” are special locations where the boundary between heaven and earth is more porous.

“I’ve always been interested in recording the beauty of the ethereal, otherworldly quality in nature, so when I heard about thin places, it resonated with me,” said Hendricks, a photographer whose “Thin Places” series of images is exhibited in SUNY Adirondack’s Visual Arts Gallery through Nov. 6. 

She spoke with more than a dozen people about places to which they felt a connection, recorded them sharing their stories, then traveled with them to photograph the locations.

“It was just a wonderful way to connect with people and learn about their stories and have these really cool locations where I tried to capture that ‘thinness,’” Hendricks said.

After completing the photo project, Hendricks received an email from poet McCoy, a retired longtime distinguished professor of English at SUNY Adirondack.

“How she found me was so interesting, so serendipitous,” Hendricks recalled. “She said, ‘I’m a poet, I did a sabbatical in Ireland, writing a group of ‘Thin Place’ poems, and I’d love to collaborate.’”

McCoy, who teaches this semester as an adjunct at SUNY Adirondack, traveled to Ireland three times between 2018 and 2020 to meet Irish poets; participate in a poetry conference at Seamus Heaney Poetry Centre in Belfast; write at residencies Anam Cara Writers and Artists Retreat in County Cork and The Moth Writers and Artists retreats in County Cavan. 

At the Writers Project event, the two will speak about the intersection of their works and how the concept of thin places inspires them. 

“I love her poetry; it’s so layered and beautiful,” Hendricks said. 

“Thin places are generally considered to be geographical places where the proverbial ‘veil’ between the seen and unseen worlds seems thin, permeable, that is, where the spirit of the land connects us to the spiritual, the mysterious and the dead,” McCoy said. 

The results are “Thin Places,” an unpublished chapbook manuscript, and “Thin Times, Thin Places,” an unpublished full-length collection, from which McCoy will read at the Writers Project. “We came up with the idea of playing my poems against MaryEllen’s amazing photos,” McCoy said.

Hendricks always wanted to be an artist. She attended Pratt Institute, with an idea she would be an illustrator and graphic artist. “I never saw photography that was art,” she explained. But when she took a photography elective and was introduced to the photographic works of great artists, everything changed. 

“I loved the dark room experience,” said Hendricks, who still shoots on film. “I ended up switching my major junior year.”

She has worked as a professional photographer since, taking photographs for a jewelry store, interior designers and architects. “That professional work pays for my hobby,” she said. 

For “Thin Places,” that hobby took her throughout the Northeast and even to Australia, to capture the beauty of the places to which her acquaintances spiritually connect.

“That indefinable feeling, that feeling of joy when you’re creating, it is a type of spirituality, it began with ancient Celtic Christianity, but now I see it as that universal feeling in nature,” Hendricks said. “A feeling of connectedness to other creatures, other humans, the world, nature and just the magic of nature and being in nature, you know how that can make you feel, it’s sort of indescribable.”

Hendricks’ “Thin Places” project is also chronicled in a self-published book that includes one of McCoy’s poems. Copies will be available for purchase at the Writers Project event.

The Writers Project is free and open to the public in the Visual Arts Gallery in Dearlove Hall. Refreshments will be served. The event is also available via Zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7977212478?pwd=ZXU5WlpJRXZ1YmZoNFNJak1yYVpSUT09

The Visual Arts Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday; and 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday during the academic year. 

PHOTO CAPTION: "Isle Iona" by MaryEllen Hendricks