Connecting – Then and Now — Diane Farris Photography

The previous blog post explored connection in life and work. For me, in photography, that signifies connecting with subjects and valuing their voices, be they the voices of people, animals, trees – or light. Last fall, my work was in a show with several levels of connection, one of which was to connect me with my work from over thirty years ago, offering the opportunity to reflect on its through lines.

The show was called Musing Women and was at FSCJ, the Florida State College at Jacksonville. Musing Women was in part homage to Kalliope, a unique art and literary journal that thrived in Jacksonville from 1979 – 2008. Curator Lynn Lewis brought together recent work from artists who had been in the journal with work from new artists and writers, richly connecting – and celebrating – past and present. What a gift to gather with artists and friends like Nofa Dixon, Louise Freshman Brown and Phyllis Delaney – in person! I was honored to have had my work featured in the January,1982 issue of Kalliope, with the writing of Marge Piercy.

In those early images, though different from my work since in many ways, the themes of both connection and its possible loss present themselves.

The young woman with her dove is an image of trust and connection. I remember the dove exploring our house: beautiful, gentle and curious. This image appeared again this spring, as a blueprint in the new and excellent Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes and is in the Harn Museum collection. The image Absent reminds me of my early engagement with photography itself, from vintage cameras and tintypes to the convention of deckled edges on snapshots. But it is the figure who has been peeled from a photograph who still exerts a visceral effect, bringing to mind people with whom we have lost touch.

“Alas for Those Who Never Sing but Die With All Their Music in Them” grieves those places where we fail to connect – with one another or with our true work. The quote is from Oliver Wendell Holmes and appeared, hand-written on an envelope, in Bill Hutchinson’s treasured ephemera collection. The lost identities of the subjects and photographers of those vintage pictures shares a sadness with many inherited boxes of family photographs, including my own. There is perhaps some solace when they are witnessed again, encountered in new times and settings.

The porcelain figures in Connected by a Thread were foreground at the time I made the photograph. Now, it is the intimate pincushion circle of tailors/seamstresses that stands out for me, mending and making whole, trying to connect the figures with a fragile silver thread. The thought of healing presence connecting with those who are isolated resonates more than ever.

Let’s meet in the kitchen! Tomato Place Setting and Side of Eggplant are from a longer series of “vegetable place settings”, foreshadowing my vegetarian future. The series referenced my love of cooking for and being with family and friends, gathering around the table to cook, dine, converse, laugh – and maybe play some cribbage or Mexican Train Dominoes afterward. Zoomsotto chronicles a version of gathering with dear ones for these cloistered times.

Above, at the beginning, is Baby with Cabbage, an image from the time, one I still sometimes give to friends welcoming infants. The serious, sweet child on the tintype spoke to me, does still. I remember trying to explain to our lovely baby sitter why I was carving a cabbage into a frame for him. It’s a playful response to a perennial question, of course. In welcoming children, our joy and wonder are renewed, as is our connection to and responsibility for the world we share and steward.