Winifred, 2015

This body of work is based on conversations and photographic sessions that were conducted between January and August 2015.  The 23 women who participated ranged in age from their mid-forties to late nineties.  During the conversations, we discussed aging, beauty, mentorship/influential people, and invisibility.

The work is grounded in documentary photography, specifically as it relates to portraiture, and in photomontage.  The printed images also have an optical quality that suggests motion and dimensional depth although neither lenticular lenses nor printers were used in creating them.

The show, Recognition, was presented at the John Sommers Gallery in the Art Department at the University of New Mexico from 16 to 27 November 2015.  At this venue it was shown with 12 framed images as well as with a video including all 23 images.  The video also featured quotes from the women that were extracted from the interviews and read by other women.

This project was done as a BFA Honors Thesis at the University of New Mexico.  I would like to thank my committee members for their guidance and suggestions as I developed and implemented this project:  Jim Stone, Constance DeJong, Michael Cook.

This project would not have been possible without the participation of the twenty-three women who allowed me into their homes to interview and photograph them.  I am also grateful to the women who read the quotes I selected out of the interviews of the twenty-three women.  I would like to thank those who wish to remain anonymous as well as to acknowledge many of these women by name:  Lea Anderson, Joyce Cooper, Mallery Downs, Danielle Fitzpatrick, Cindy Foster, Diane Glenn, Joy Hill, Alexis Kaminsky, RoJean Madsen, Sylvia Montesinos, Robin Neft, Anna O’Connell, Mimi Paden, Marianne Powers, Cynthia Ranke, Jetta Reynolds, Evelyn Rosenberg, Jan Squires, Carol Summers, Erin Watley, Sybil Wertheim, Jeanne Willis-Long.

The Images
John Sommers Gallery Reception
More about the project

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