256. The Color Purple - Part I

It may appear by my blog posts of late that I have been a little lazy. Well I have to confess... that is simply not true. I have been working on several projects that have kept me running at a pace even more crazy than frantic. Now that most of those projects have been completed I feel I can discuss at least one of them.

A few months ago I entered a competition in the Santa Clarita Valley sponsored by Single Mothers Outreach. The contest paired a writer and artist to tell the story of several women honorees in the Santa Clarita Valley. I was paired with writer Martha Michael from Santa Clarita Living Magazine to honor the women who founded the Domestic Violence Center of SCV. The idea was simple. Martha would interview the honorees and I would take some photographs. We submit our work, there is an exhibition in November, and the winners are announced. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

It took me some time to get a hold of the honorees. When I finally had a chance to talk with them the true enormity of the task started to emerge. My original idea was to take some candid style (a la Life Magazine) images put together in a photo essay. What I didn't understand is for protection and privacy I wasn't able to photograph the honorees, the Center, the building, or any of its patrons. All these women were victims of abuse and were too terrified to have there picture involved in this project.  Floored, but not deterred, I had to think up another approach and fast. I dug up an idea from an installation I completed in graduate school. At the time I was working with shadows as symbolic place holders. As I left graduate school I put this idea to bed, and after 15 years I took it out of the bin and dusted it off.  In this case, the shadow returned as a symbolic placeholder for the women and families that could not participate in the project.

Martha's story focused on frequency of domestic violence in middle to upper class homes - that it isn't just a biproduct of the lower class and undereducated. She started her story with a perfect family standing outside a perfect home. This is too where I decided to begin my story with Martha's vision. The outside of a beautiful Santa Clarita home. The perfect family? The shadow. Here the cycle of violence begins - this honeymoon period. This is the public space and no one would suspect that this family would have something to hide.

Tomorrow, the second of the four images... stay tuned.