Wedding Dresses: the Book
Long and white is fascinating plus a lot of symbolism. I never wanted a wedding. But dresses, rings, and cakes , well, that’s something else. The Dress pervades society—everywhere. Culture and symbolism, mythology and influence. Fairy tales, ruby slippers, queen for a day. The person of The Dress takes on a life of its own, luring everywoman into the heaven or hell of marital relationship. Logic goes out the window with its siren song that seems ingrained in female psyche.
Dress-up is just plain fun, and the endless variety of bride-styles offers intrigue to the point of obsession. After all, I photographed some 4,000 formal events in my studio career. My collection of dress imagery numbers thousands. Many have started with traditional photographs, but then I got the idea of casual street iPhoneography. Snaps of shop windows, models, mannequins, actual brides, appropriated magazine advertising and video bits.
Opening image and short essay of the book Wedding Dresses with Hardware Inclusions
In tune with the fairytale premise, nothing in my images is real, but drastically manipulated, primarily in phone apps and also computer. And I write—a lot. Words mixing and melding with pixels. A story arc began to evolve, partially autobiographical, of an artist’s certain resolve that marriage was unhealthy, to doubts and new information, to the lure of The Dress, to happening serendipitously on a prospective mate, though challenges, reversals, and toward a denouement that is anything but certain until the very last moment.
The Poetry Collective year-long program of Lighthouse Writers Workshops, Denver, posed the perfect venue to develop my concept under competent instructors. I had to compete to secure a place in the collective, based on the capstone manuscript I proposed to pursue. I knew I sought a wider audience than a personal project.
Poetry and image panorama from the book Wedding Dresses with Hardware Inclusions
I admit my first poems were mostly washouts, but the project grew and took shape, with edit after edit. Project creep! Over a hundred poems and short prose paired with more than double the images. Sequencing is paramount; images and text must mesh in meaning. The last word has not yet been written. My vision is big—a large coffee table book. A sculptural art book with a passionate story.