Fifty years ago, I became a strong woman. I didn’t know it then, but I see it now. My mother was debilitated by mental illness. At ten, I was not ready to be the parent in our relationship. Being alone was better. I was relieved when she went to the hospital for months, then years. My solitude became a haven where I could learn independence. My skin became thick; my emotions stoic. I was strong minded; strong willed; just strong.
These self-portraits celebrate solitude and strength. In solitude, I find a place to think, a place to be free, a place of comfort. In solitude I am strong.
Fashion Plate is an artistic collaboration with my mother. It started before I was born, and was finished after she left this world. I have incorporated my mother’s drawings with my photography, creating a digital compilation of our work.
It began in the late 1940s. Maxine Cobert was a fashion illustrator in Chicago IL for iconic retailers such as Mandel Brothers, Marshall Fields and Chas A Stevens. The post war style of full skirts and cinched waists redefined fashion. Maxine captured the trend with the stroke of her pen. She was young and talented. She stayed up late into the night with her colleagues, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, while they created drawing after drawing to meet their deadlines. It was a hopeful and exciting time for the young woman named as “Von Steuben’s Fashion Plate” in her high school yearbook.
As I examined each of Maxine’s drawings, I was transported back to a time I never knew. I imagined it as a world of mystery and glamour. Her drawings have confidence, flair, and a certain je ne sais quoi. They beckoned me to place them in a world I know now and give them life once again.
This series, She Walks Within, is my exploration of the women inside me. At this time in my life, I look back on who I was and who I have become. Each image shows a mood, a personality, an emotion, that exists inside me now, or has at one point.
After I created these images, I realized that the influence of my artistic mother comes out in the style and the way I use techniques to create my art. These images, that start as photographs, are enhanced with various digital techniques and “painting” which create similar effects as my mother did with oils and canvas. As a young child, I would work next to her, side by side, in her studio. I realize now, even after she has passed, that she lives within me helping me create my images.
She Walks Within has been, and continues to be, an exploration of who I am.
Transported back to a time I never knew, I imagine a world of mystery and glamour. I imagine myself with confidence, flair, and a certain je ne sais quoi. My Vintage Memories beckon me even as they only exist in my mind.
We are living in a time when human rights laws that have been in place for half a century are being overturned, and lawmakers are upending the lives of our daughters and granddaughters by taking away rights that we fought for in our youth. This series is my call to action for us to continue the fight we thought we won. We should have no regrets, and we should have no regressing to an archaic way of thinking.
During the pandemic, we all began to evolve and adapt as the months went on. Delving into this type of evolution, I was curious what I could make out of images of simple objects I had saved for a “rainy day”. As I experimented with each image, creatures emerged as I digitally enhanced and manipulated them. I saw these little creations as a diversion for the chaos in the world around me.
