I was born in 1969 to an mixed couple, my mom with white European and French Canadian roots from northern Maine and my dad, Puerto Rican, born in Puerto Rico.
I am currently a homeschooling mama to my boys who are 13 and 15. My husband was born and raised in Dominican Republic. We spend as much time as we can living in Dominican Republic. We are raising bilingual and bicultural children. After I did a ton of photography in Dominican I came to a philosophical pause about my photography and its purpose. I have a huge body of work that I planned for a book- Documentary work from the mountains of DR. Today, I mostly photograph with my phone and sometimes with my digital camera. I am returning to my roots of mixed media. I find myself compartmentalized. And I am in an area of my life where art making is on the periphery. My children are receiving all my creative energy at the moment. I quit my full time teaching career of 14 years at Miss Porter’s School, Farmington, CT, an all girls boarding school, to focus solely on homeschooling.
During my time at Miss Porter’s School, I was in charge of the photography program, I was the program. I taught intro, intermediate, advanced, color, digital and independent classes. I also taught the first level of the studio art program. During my time there I helped develop award winning high school photographers and dynamic creative thinkers. I completed large scale community art projects with Miss Porter’s students and students in the community. An example is Act Like You Care that was completed in 2001 with 12-14 girls who learned about their surrounding communities, activism and gained heroes in the process. They photographed their heroes and those images, through funding by a company called Gerber Scientific, were printed on a wrap. That wrap was adhered to a CT Transit bus and travelled Hartford county for a year.
I have won a grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and Art Matters. I did a residency in 2006 with The Photographic Resource Center, with baby in tow. That was a first for them and me. I have been to multiple Society of Photographic education conferences as well as POCC “People of Color Conference” for Independent and boarding schools.
I received my Master’s degree ‘97 in Photography at Hartford Art School, University of Hartford where I studied with Mary Frey and Ellen Carey in photography, and Chris Horton and Gene Gort in experimental and video. During that time I found myself involved in a censorship case concerning my some of my thesis work. I had received permission to hang my work in a city owned building. I won the right to keep my work installed after it had been censored by city officials.
I received my Bachelor’s degree ‘92 in Photography at University of Connecticut where I studied with John Craig and William “Bill” Parker among others.
My blog https://withlovemarlo.blog/
My instagram @marlomarrerophotography
Married name Marlo Marrero Fernandez
circa 2021