Tuesday, November 18, 2008



Icons exhibition at Woman Made Gallery
opening reception Friday Nov. 21, 6-9 pm
juried by Margaret Denny
Nov. 21 - Dec. 18 2008
685 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60622
click here to see more works in the ICONS exhibition

I have 2 pieces in this upcoming exhibition. These works are from a series entitled Signs of Women. In 2005, while working on a research paper I found myself looking for synonyms of the word “woman”. I was shocked to discover that so many of the so-called synonyms were both completely offensive and belittling (such as prostitute or cupcake) or they referred to the ways in which women served or related to others (wife, maid, etc.). I realized that there aren’t many synonyms for women that are positive or that don’t involve subservience to others. So what do these synonyms for women say about the representation, status, and iconography of women today?

Signs of Women presents silhouetted figures along with “synonyms” of women. This project questions the way both language and imagery determines our understanding of women. The images are engraved on plastic plaques reminiscent of the signs we see on bathroom doors, everyday icons that reduce us to, and sort us into, symbols.

Icons at Woman Made Gallery features 3 other Columbia alumni/students: Liz Chilsen, Mary Farmilant, and Niki Grangruth. The exhibition was juried by Columbia faculty, Margaret Denny. I'm proud to be part of this exhibition, which adds some much needed, and sorely missed, female perspectives to contemporary photography. I hope YOU will see the exhibition and support women artists, and Woman Made Gallery!

Thursday, November 06, 2008

La Ponderosa Beach, Pavones, Costa Rica

So the election is over... and I'm ecstatic about the results!! Maybe now I can get back to my own work.

The above image is one of my rare landscape photos. Rare in that I don't show many of them. I shoot a lot of landscapes, but I never feel like I quite capture the place. It always feels like the photograph needs something else - like a person within the space. Maybe it is just my personal bias toward portraiture. I think another problem is that this place, Pavones, pictured above is just so vastly beautiful and amazing in so many different ways that I find it difficult to capture it within the limited space of the frame. When I look at this photograph, I am also thinking of and feeling the expanse of the space around and behind me, which is not shown within the frame.

I realize that a photographer obviously cannot capture every aspect of a person in a photograph either, but somehow the physical space of Pavones seems to allude me and my camera much more than the faces of the people I come across.

I guess this challenge will be part of my next task whenever I return to Pavones.