I am not an authority in womanhood. Except for the fact that
I am one. Raised in a macho society within a mainly patriarchal world, I grew
up safe and cozy, being taught how to be proper and perfect. How to please
others, not myself, because I was supposed to feel pleased by simply fulfilling
what was expected of me. I didn’t quite follow suit: I cut my hair short in
high school and refused to have a boyfriend or pursue the career that my mother
wanted me to pursue. I moved abroad by myself, for graduate school, at an age
where half of my childhood friends were mothers. I felt like quite the rebel. I
never wanted to be in a position of power; power over myself was enough.
This is how it starts. This is how one grows hollow and
purposeless. A woman’s gift is to nurture: a child, a career, a relationship, a
dream; whatever endeavor she embarks on. And every day we are put down for
owning up to that gift, even when it is what’s expected of us. It took me many
years of “rebellion” to understand this, and to develop a visceral rejection for
how mundane the idea that nurturing is a weakness has become. Women get in the
game and come out on top by losing themselves and being more like men. We mean
to strive for equality, but we found ourselves fighting for sameness.
I photograph women. Not because I don’t like men, but
because I want to be a part of a river of voices that is awakening the gender
that has gone quiet. I invite women into my studio and remind them of the
nurturing role they can choose to fulfill. We wear so many hats, and it is when
we are nurturers that we wear them best. But we seldom give ourselves
permission to just be women, to just nurture without an agenda, naturally and
shamelessly. To nurture ourselves. To be present and let our fears, our
conquers, our struggles sip through and bloom on the surface. If it ever
happens, it goes undocumented. We are too busy, too fat, too skinny, too old,
too tired, too grumpy, too preoccupied with being perfect… too quiet to keep a
record. And so, we exist mostly behind the camera. Photographing our children,
our colleagues, our world. And if we are ever in a photo, we have an uncanny
ability to find miniscule, insignificant details of ourselves that we hate and
that justify not keeping the snapshot. Delete, delete, delete… So no images of
ourselves are left to treasure, like the ones of our grandmothers, in her
pearls, which we may be fortunate to find in a shoebox in the attic.
This land of nowhere welcomed me with open arms when I moved
here three years ago. It has been forgiving and enriching, and like the mother
I left behind it has nurtured me and given me the strength to move out and into
and ahead. Its community of business women, mothers, artists, politicians, has
empowered me to rediscover my own womanhood, to embrace it, and to want to
empower others to do the same. I want every woman I know to give themselves the
gift of existing in photos. For themselves and for future generations. I want
them to drop the conventions, what’s expected of them, the excuses, the mask
they wear every day, and to allow themselves to be nurtured by other women and
photographed in a glorious session celebrating their womanhood.
Thanks Wiley Combs for featuring us, and for supporting local art.
