Textiles of the Banjara - Official Release

Neelavva, Banjara woman. Karnataka, November 2013.

This month is the official release for Textiles of the Banjara: Cloth and Culture of a Wandering Tribe. A book I co-authored with Charllotte Kwon.

Charllotte had been seeking embroiderers from this community since she first started visiting India. I joined her on her search and was able to apply my love of portraiture to the project. We photographed Neelavva in the fields where she and a small group of other women were working. It was the corn harvest. I carried a large piece of black cloth with me. Two assistants held the cloth behind her and I made the picture.

This photo, along with Banjara embroidery, will be included in an exhibition to take place at the Monte Clarke Gallery, September 22 - October 1, 2016.

Here is link to the Banjara promotional PDF.

Alex Kwon

Alex Kwon, restorationist. January 17, 2016.

It was dark and cold but the rain had stopped. Alex drove the 64 Continental past us to the rear of the lot. It seemed to take an hour to pass, such a long car. I tried for a long time to light it, to show it, and in the end I just gave up and let the car be what it wanted to be. So much blackness. Like a hole in the night.

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I have started to post on instagram. I'm hopeful that, in the same way sound artists in the '80s made "radio art" as a way to reinterpret broadcast media, there is a way to leverage instagram as a creative medium.

Here are two links to this post in that medium.

Darkness of the Edge of Town

Darkness of the Edge of Town No. 2