It's not always easy to follow your passion, particularly if it means trekking into the Himalayas to visit remote villages. But that didn't stop Cora Edmonds - whose photography captures a slice of the lives in the rural villages of Nepal.
What Edmonds didn't bargain for was how one of her photographs would change her life.
Taken in 2000, one of the most well known photographs Edmonds took, "Namaste," shows a young boy in Nepal giving the traditional Nepali greeting.
"He just came up to me one morning, right at the break of dawn," Edmonds said, "and he just gave me the most radiant namaste. When I came back to Seattle I developed hundreds and hundreds of rolls of film, and that image really stood out."
This photograph, along with several others by Edmonds, is currently on display through Jan. 26 in the Swirl Wine Bar, at 3217 W. McGraw St.
Since first showing "Namaste," Edmonds found the photograph really seemed to touch people. After telling the photograph's story over and over at exhibits, in 2007 Edmonds and her husband (whom she met when he purchased the photo in 2001) decided they needed to go back to Nepal and find the young boy, Gyeni who is now 14 years old.
"Because it was such a remote area we felt we had a fairly good chance of finding him," Edmonds said. "When we did locate him we said, you've really given us a lot and we'd like to give something back. What's your biggest wish?"
It turned out that Gyeni was a top student at his village school and he wanted to continue his studies, so Edmonds and her husband offered to send Gyeni to a school in southern Nepal using money from their own pockets.
But that wasn't enough. They felt more could be done for the children in impoverished villages like Thehe, so in June 2008 they started The Namaste Children's Fund - a nonprofit dedicated to supporting community-based education for women and children in underserved regions of Nepal. The Fund has now supported the continuing education for 50 children and the establishment of Simikot Girl's Hostel - a boarding facility for 25 Thehe girls that allows them access to schooling, which would have been a five-hour walk from their Thehe village.
When Edmonds left her corporate job and founded the ArtXchange gallery in Pioneer Square in 1995, she finally had time to pursue her interest in travel, people and culture, which led her to visit more than 50 countries and shoot rolls of film nonstop. It also opened a door to helping children thousands of miles away.
With exhibits like the one in Swirl Wine Bar raise awareness and help Edmonds generated funds to continue providing access to the children in remote Nepali villages.
"It's been a really tremendous success, and I think it makes the neighborhood more vibrant. It makes everybody feel really connected, too," Edmonds said. "A lot patrons have really appreciated that."
Though Nepal may be a faraway land, Edmonds insists everyone is part of an interconnected world.
"Nepal may feel really far way," Edmonds said, "but to me I feel like the children's well-being is my well-being. Anything we can do to help is really key, so they have an improved quality of life."
