Joel Sackett, the first Island Treasure Award recipient in the arts, is a historian of images. He has put his consummate talent as a photographer at the service of the community, creating a visual record of life on Bainbridge Island. Through his photographs we see ourselves as part of a community that is far greater than any of our immediate circles. Joel‘s photographs provide a visual inventory of the here and now on the Island, a catalogue of our resources: people, places, professions, landscapes, lifestyles, and relationships. He has captured that part of us that is slowly (and sometimes swiftly) vanishing. It may be the thing that brought us to the Island, but which, by our very coming, we have altered. Joel’s work has given us a way of preserving many of these vanishing aspects of Island life.
When Joel photographs our community’s assets he is all-inclusive: children and teenagers have as much presence as tribal elders and civic leaders. He also illuminates those who may be less-known and understood. For example, he reveals the faces behind such a term as “liveaboard.” Joel shows us that these are people, these are families, these are mariners, this is a tradition. This is all part of Bainbridge history.