Bill Cottman: A Remembrance

By David Pierini staff reporter

Bill Cottman walked quietly with his small Olympus camera taking photos nearly every day. He described his pictures as “social landscapes,” a visual diary of people, places and things that crossed his path. 

He also made a lot of pictures of his feet. “I’m collecting evidence of having been here,” he’d say.

Cottman passed away on Dec. 8. He was 77 but evidence of his brilliant existence, especially in his beloved North Minneapolis, will remain significant for generations to come. 

The evidence goes beyond the photographs, pictures that at times captured proud Norhtsiders while others were complex, introspective, symbolic and personal. 

He took pictures, but gave more. Photography was an act of love for Cottman and when he snapped your picture, you felt seen and affirmed.  

There are many artists who grew from his mentorship and collaborations. His family was the first monthly donor to Juxtaposition Arts, where he sat on its board of directors. In September, Cottman and his wife Beverly proudly grabbed a shovel and participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building. 

“He’s one of the reasons I do what I do,” said Roger Cummings, the chief cultural producer of Juxtaposition Arts. “Shoulders like his are what we stand on and we go a little higher. We couldn’t do what we do, we couldn’t have this building, without people like Bill.

Artist Bill Cottman was at the September groundbreaking for a new building at Juxtaposition Arts. Photo by David Pierini

“I was thinking about him, when I last touched him or spoke with him. To hear he transitioned the way he did was a piece of art. He knew where wanted to be, what window to look out.”

William J. Cottman was born on July, 3, 1944 and grew up in Salisbury, Md., where he attended a segregated high school. There he had dreams of becoming a commercial artist, but was steered toward more practical careers. 

“That’s not a statement about our teachers and our guidance people,” he told MinnPost in 2020. “They were doing everything they could to put us on paths that would allow us to support ourselves and our families.”

He went to Howard University and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1967. That same year, he married Beverly Delores Walton and the couple moved to Minnesota for work. Cottman spent most of a long career as an engineer for Honeywell. 

In 1968, Cottman took an introductory photography class at the St. Paul Arts & Science Center. Other photography classes and workshops followed and it wasn’t long before he was exhibiting work. His résumé shows numerous grants and more than 50 exhibitions for photography. 

Cottman’s artistic vision was not limited to the viewfinder of a camera. He was a writer and poet, using a three-line structure, similar to Haiku, for poems that accompanied photographs in some of the six books he published. 

He was a jazz music host on KFAI radio and loved good food and travel. Mexico was a regular winter destination, where he did a lot of his writing.

He also created projected image performances that incorporated his photography and poetry. In 2012, Cottman transformed one of his books, “Surface Tension,” into a stage performance at the Old Arizona Theater that featured his wife’s stories and the choreography of their daughter, Kenna-Camara Cottman. 

Art is not an activity but a way the Cottman family lives.

The family is sewn at the hips, visual artist Nikki McComb said. Beverly Cottman is a collage and assemblage artist, daughter Kenna, a choreographer who founded Voice of Culture, a drum and dance group. Granddaughter, Yonci, works in many art forms, drumming, dancing and spoken word to name a iew. Grandson Ebrima Sarge performs as a drummer and dancer. 

“It’s a hard hit to the community for sure,” McComb said. “He was just one of those people. He supported everything I did. He and Beverly came to all my openings. A lot of people, not necessarily photographers, would create works and post them, saying they were inspired by Bill Cottman.”

McComb said she and Cottman regularly talked about weird photographs and self-portraits, which Cottman made sure to make as a way of recording a feeling in the moment – or his feet in the moment.

In the 2020 interview with MinnPost, he recalled the first time he photographed his feet. It was on a business trip and he had recently begun seeing a therapist for depression. 

“I went out walking on a little path, and I came to a little bridge that crossed a little steam,” he told columnist Pamela Espeland. “And I looked down, saw my feet, and said to myself, ‘I’m not depressed.’ I took a picture and started carrying that picture in my wallet as a reminder.”