35-40% off starting june 1st

Hey everyone! I hope this email finds you very well. I, for one, am enjoying a bit of downtime following the end of the recipe card project and this cozy, days-long rain. Beginning June 1st, I’ll be opening my final print sale. You’ll find all the details at the end of this email, but first, I wanted to take a moment to share the heart behind this decision, and to reflect a bit on the journey that’s led me to closing my print shop.
 

“Can I Touch It” by "Almost every woman has toiled before the mirror, trying desperately to look “professional.” Photographer Endia Beal explored this frustration that occurs so often in the corporate sphere, this feeling of otherness that asks women, quite simply, to change. For minority women this change is often far more difficult, as the ideal corporate appearance remains, in most cases, the white male."

 

I remember the surreal experience of meeting Endia Beal. The universe had somehow divined me onto her path and through several plot twists and turns, I found myself sitting across from her desk in Diggs Gallery—a stunning show she'd curated hanging just outside her door—on the precipice of what felt like being taken under the wing of an artist I admired. The first time I'd encountered her work, a frame from her series Can I Touch It stopped me in my tracks on Pinterest.

I was floored by her ability to achieve such an abrupt yet vivid perspective on respectability politics with something as subtle as a corporate portrait; And for months, as I became exasperated with photo-based gig work—playing around with funny concepts with my friends in the meantime—I would keep encountering her. But it was one particular visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art, where I saw her face on a poster outside of her solo exhibit Am I What You're Looking For? that something connected for me. 

“Can I Touch It” by "Almost every woman has toiled before the mirror, trying desperately to look “professional.” Photographer Endia Beal explored this frustration that occurs so often in the corporate sphere, this feeling of otherness that asks women, quite simply, to change. For minority women this change is often far more difficult, as the ideal corporate appearance remains, in most cases, the white male."

Inspired by seeing a Black woman exhibit complex narratives within her own experience, a couple of years later I released WOVEN. And shortly after, my five-chapter Magnolias series. The bodies of work marked a dramatic departure from the bright and idyllic world of weddings, family photos, and public events, to centering shadow, grain, and the broad and mysterious landscape of conceptual image-making.
 

And there I was, sitting across Endia's desk, a couple series under my belt, scared as hell. She was bright, brilliant, and so kind—still is—and her interrogation cut me and shaped me at the same time.

“Do you know the work of Carrie Mae Weems?”
No.

She probed for familiarity with a few more Black women artists, and between each deeply embarrassing “no” and brief description of another legacy photographer's work, I scribbled their names, series titles—anything I didn't know—into my notebook.

“Do you know what an artist statement is?”
No.

“Have you ever written a formal statement for your work?”
sigh, No.

 

Make no mistake, our conversation was not about deflating me or my experience, but about guiding me to a requisite realization: that if I'm going to build in this space, if I'm going to develop the photographic practice of using photography as your diary, if your desire is to be seen in these spaces, you better know your foremothers.
 

That evening I went home and ordered a copy of The Kitchen Table Series.

“Weems suggests the kitchen table is the real stage where life’s biggest moments play out, and where the full range of human emotions is expressed.The series compellingly examines women’s lives. It boldly asserts, in particular, Black womanhood’s complexity, strength, and beauty.”  - NGA

My studies deepened. I devoured art books. I made new work, and with greater respect, my images took me places I'd never expected.

 

My first-ever solo show, Reach, attracted over 100 guests  for my opening live show and reception. I found my work on museum walls, nestled next to icons like Beverly McIver and Kennedi Carter at the Nasher Museum. I debuted a pivotal body of work centering fear and perception of the Black male body during the 2020 uprisings, which landed me a solo exhibition at the at the North Carolina Museum of Art. And later on, I found myself in the heart of Brooklyn, sharing a new body of work titled Shadow Work—a series about excavating memory after immense trauma.

“Shadow Work” - The Java Project, Brooklyn, NY | April 29 - May 29, 2022

The opening reception of Reach; live performance and living installation.

To say that my rise was swift and charmed is an understatement.
 

And in the quiet years since my last solo show, I've soured on my own acclaim—finding it to be just the brief racket on the other side of so much searching, delving, and floundering internally.

 

 

 

I have been wracked by dead air in my art practice. When people have asked me in my Q&As what I do when I go through seasons of little to no inspiration or practice, my typical answer was, “Listen to what the space is asking of me; try something creative outside of my practice to trip a bit of inspiration." But lately, I've asked myself a different question: How do I talk about the experience of growing away from my work? What a tough mirror to look in.

 

And sometimes, in my dysmorphic viewing of that self—and as I've gained deeper perspective and experience of the art world—I sometimes wonder if my work was successful because of my talent, or because I was asking questions poignant to its positioning in history; Telling my Black feminine story at the center of the “natural hair movement” with Magnolias. Or offering a multimedia treatise on fear and perception of Black male bodies in the uprisings of 2020 with Mark Yourself Safe. Or is it just seductive technical mastery? Maybe no. Maybe all of the above. And maybe there's nothing wrong with any of it.

 

So I've leaned into other areas of my interests—ones interested in telling stories of objects through still life photography for brands, or food-based narratives, or developing incredible products that I get to share with you.

I didn't arrive at the decision to close my print shop easily.

 

I've lost resonance with my own work while simultaneously experiencing the continuum of joy and wonder of others as they meet it for the first time. It's so bittersweet. But as a new iteration on solving for a deep desire to make images I'm proud of again, the experience of rolling that bittersweetness into tubes and sending it across the world should sunset.

 

Magnolia series: Sestina.

Reimagining.
 

In a book I read a couple of weeks ago called People Collide by Isle McElroy, I highlighted a sentence: "Art is never about talent. It's about effort." In some career arcs, the former may be a [subjective] truth, but I believe the universal truth rests in the latter.
 

 

I desire deep effort. To take time and study, to sit with critique groups, work with my peers and generate community around art—to become more of a student of my life that flows freely and documents. I take little cameras with me everywhere as a start; I'd like to put distance between myself and my old stories, and make way for the new diary entries. That will take some time.

And as for Endia? I'm so honored now to call Endia both a friend and peer. I'm so honored that I am positioned to impart my wisdom, such as creating an exhibition and funding resource for artists (← free for you all!) rooted in my own experience—because there should be community in this sometimes vain and unkind space.

 

So this is my last print sale as it is known today. In the future, print runs may look like limited editions of new work, but that's a far distant aspiration. I have no clue what shape any of it will take. And I'm excited by that.

and Now, About the sale

35-40% off sale runs june 1 - 31

 

See you on June 1!