The Public’s Radio — Photographer Kathie Florsheim’s elegy to the vanishing shore

Photographs capture daily life and damage at Roy Carpenter’s Beach in South Kingstown.  Copyright Kathie Florsheim.  All rights reserved.  

May 29, 2024

By Alex Nunes — Kathie Florsheim wants you to understand just what’s happening to our eroding coastline. She’s not a scientist. She’s a fine art photographer who’s been photographing beaches in the region for about 50 years.

Editor’s note: This story is part of “Washout: Our vanishing beaches,” a series about the reshaping of Rhode Island’s shoreline. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Photographer Kathie Florsheim has held several residencies and fellowships, and her work is permanently held at the Fogg Museum at Harvard, the RISD Art museum and other museums and private collections. As part of an ongoing series on beach erosion by The Public’s Radio, Florsheim invited South County Bureau Reporter Alex Nunes to meet up at her longtime muse: Roy Carpenter’s Beach in South Kingstown. 

Photographs capture daily life and damage at Roy Carpenter’s Beach in South Kingstown. © Kathie Florsheim. All rights reserved.

When photographer Kathie Florsheim walks around the private beachside community at Roy Carpenter’s Beach she’s a familiar face. She doesn’t have a beach place, but she’s been coming here since before the teenagers wandering the narrow dirt roads between tiny beach cottages were born. 

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