May 2025 Newsletter
All the Women I Know, Make Me a Picture of the Sun, Hidden Histories of Photography
All the Women I Know Divination Card Deck
For the past five years, writer Christine Hume and I have been collaborating on an image/text book, All the Women I Know, to be published by Saint Lucy Books in Fall 2025. The book maps and embodies the on-going epidemic of sexual violence and the erosion of bodily autonomy in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision. Blending portraiture, collective biography, and cultural criticism, this work of creative nonfiction catalogues a chorus of resistance by women in intimate, ethical, and political dimensions. The project’s taken many forms including published excerpts, sound pieces, and a Zoom performance in the middle of Covid-19. It's brought me so much joy and hope during a time of enormous struggle and sadness.
Our most recent iteration of the project is a deck of divination cards commissioned by The Racial Imaginary Institute for their third biennial exhibition and symposium, For Real For Real, which considers radical ways of depicting a life. The exhibition is on view at daadgalerie through July 27, 2025. We’ve produced the deck in a limited edition of 200 to raise funds for the printing the book.
Our deck consists of 53 unique cards, gesturing both toward and beyond the standard game deck. Though it comes with instructions, we encourage play and chance encounters as much as cartomancy and storytelling. Divination is one way to explore our lives as they intertwine with others. Our cards address the specific ways gender scripts our experiences. Because conscious and collective resistance demands specialized intelligences, we have divided our deck into five elements: air, earth, fire, water, and aether, each with its own color and sigil derived from a 19th century figure skating manual.
Christine has been rallying to make a deck since we started working together and I’m grateful to have been swept up in her enthusiasm and vision. Thank you to Elana Schlenker for her brilliant design and hard work on a tight deadline.
The deck’s available for purchase on my website for $100 in a limited edition of 200. All sales will support the production costs for the book. Thank you for your support in all the forms it takes.
State of the Sky at Mattress Factory
Last year, I produced series of photograms inspired by an Emily Dickinson’s poem, Make me a picture of the sun (188) for Luke Stettner’s project, State of the Sky, at the Mattress Factory. Some of these prints have been installed in the solar darkroom, a feature of the exhibition, alongside works by Stettner, Calista Lyon, Sheilah ReStack, and Suzanne Silver.
Make me a picture of the sun—
So I can hang it in my room—
And make believe I'm getting warm
When others call it "Day"!
Draw me a Robin—on a stem—
So I am hearing him, I'll dream,
And when the Orchards stop their tune—
Put my pretense—away—
Say if it's really—warm at noon—
Whether it's Buttercups—that "skim"—
Or Butterflies—that "bloom"?
Then—skip—the frost—upon the lea—
And skip the Russet—on the tree—
Let's play those—never come!
Hidden Histories of Photography at 21C Chicago
Chicago friends! I’ll be giving a talk about my work at 21C Hotel on Saturday, June 21st at 2:00 PM. I’ll discuss the relationship between archival research and creative practice in Hidden Mother and City of Incurable Women. The event is free!
My visit is co-sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary of Photography as part of their programming for Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography. I’ve lent four hidden mother photographs from my collection for the exhibition.