By Laurie O’Neill — Laurie@concordbridge.org
“Two roads diverged” in Barbara Aiello’s life. But unlike the poet who penned those words, Aiello does not regret the one “not taken.”
That’s because she took both paths, becoming an ordained minister and pursuing her lifelong passion for photography.
Aiello’s striking images, mostly of local landscapes, are on display through September 3 at the Gallery in the Parish House of Trinity Episcopal Church.
Exploration and discovery
Aiello began taking pictures as a toddler when her father let her use his Polaroid camera, a device that “totally fascinated me,” she says. When she was about 7, she had her own Brownie box camera, and as a teenager and young adult, she used an Instamatic.
An Albany, New York, native, Aiello assumed the role of unofficial documentarian of her family and of her friends at Manhattanville College, where she studied history. She filled notebooks and albums with her photos. After graduation, Aiello did some teaching and earned a master’s degree in education at SUNY Albany.
Wanderlust was what next sent Aiello out into the world for a six-month backpacking trip through Europe. There, she was not only “mesmerized” by the “landscapes, urbanscapes, and curiosities,” but she also learned how to fill her days with exploration and discovery.
Which is something she continues to do, walking the conservation trails in Concord and Acton and recording what she sees. Aiello loves to photograph the Old North Bridge and has “probably taken 1,000 pictures of it,” she says. “And they’re all different.”
The Maine coast and Boston are other favorite subjects. Aiello praises the printing shop Pitch Black Editions in West Concord for the quality of her images.
A call to the ministry
And what about that other road?
Flash back to the years after her backpacking trip. Aiello moved to Boston and fell in love with the city, where she had “a great life,” she says, recalling the nights she would bike to a disco for dancing. It was the 70s, after all.
She set up a darkroom in her apartment and enrolled at Boston Architectural College.
With a 35 mm Canon SLR camera in hand, she developed “an appreciation of the necessary considerations of light, of glancing from a different perspective, and of framing a scene to hold it fast in my memory. I was brought to awe again and again,” she says.
Though Aiello loved “the design part” of studying architecture, she was less enthusiastic about such tasks as drawing electrical plans. About halfway through, she left the program and worked for many years as an office manager for an architectural firm.
But always, Aiello says, “There was a question in the back of my head: What was I put on this planet to do?” She set out again, this time traveling across the country for the next five years. The whole time, she was “in a prayerful search of what to do with my life.”
Back in Boston, Aiello was planning a cycling trip in China when she spotted a flier about an open house at Andover Newton Theological School, a seminary in Newton affiliated with the United Church of Christ. Aiello signed up for a class on the history of religion and soon recognized that she had, finally, found her vocation. She was ordained in 1994.
A ‘source of sustenance’
Aiello pastored at five churches, including in Berlin and Newburyport, and retired from her position as associate minister at Acton Congregational Church in 2019. Meanwhile, newly single, she moved from the town of Harvard to Concord in 2010.
Despite her busy life as a pastor, Aiello’s avocation continued to be photography. She made the hall outside her church office an impromptu gallery for her photos and work by members of the congregation.
After retirement, Aiello began to seriously refocus on her art, taking courses and connecting with other photographers. Her “constant companion and recording secretary” these days is an iPhone 15 Pro and its camera.
Aiello appreciates that her subjects are right outside her door. “I feel blessed to have such easy access to the extraordinary beauty of this town that is a short distance from my front porch,” Aiello says while at home, a cozy apartment in an 1850 house not far from the green, preparing her photographs for exhibit.
“Living here,” she says, “and being able to visit both well-known and hidden spots is a continual source of sustenance.”
The Gallery at Trinity Episcopal Church on 81 Elm Street (enter through the River Street door) is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to noon during Coffee Hour after Sunday church services. An artist’s reception will be held at the church on Tuesday, August 13, from 4 to 6 p.m.
