Something Borrowed

The painting, on loan to NMWA through September, is Well Prepared and Maladjusted (2008), by Amy Sherald (b. 1973). Sherald considers it a pivotal work in her career, and it began with a chance encounter. When Sherald met her subject, the artist was working in Baltimore, and the model was a curatorial intern at the city’s Walters Art Museum. Drawn to her height, hairstyle, and overall look, Sherald chose to depict the woman in the outfit she was wearing that day. According to Sherald, “She was 6’3” and had on this polka-dot outfit from a second-hand store . . . I saw my story in her.” While Sherald painted, a poet wrote about her work as part of a program through the Studio Museum in Harlem. Once they were both done, Sherald found the perfect title for the painting from the poem’s lines.

While at NMWA, Well Prepared and Maladjusted joins Sherald’s They Call Me Redbone, but I’d Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake (2009), a 2012 acquisition currently on view in the museum’s collection galleries. Would it surprise you to know both artworks were inspired by the same woman?

The paintings began with color photographs taken by Sherald, who documented the model in various costumes. When translating the image to painting, the artist included two of her hallmark techniques: she painted the skin in shades of gray, and she removed the background, which focuses viewers’ attention on the figure by eliminating references to time and space. Sherald is often asked, “why gray?,” and she acknowledges that her answer to the question has transformed over the years. In part, it is a reflection on the history of photography. For Sherald, the invention of the camera and the accessibility of black-and-white photography represent a turning point: Black people could create their own images and control their stories widely for the first time.

Well Prepared and Maladjusted shares key qualities with Sherald’s more recent work, but her artistic evolution is clear in subtle shifts, such as a move away from the textured backgrounds seen here toward flatter planes of color. Still, the core of her work remains the same. Sherald has said, “My mission as an artist really hasn’t changed, to put more complex stories of Black life in the forefront of people’s minds and on the walls of museums. I think that’s what I want to continue to do . . . take up space and reclaim time.”

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1. Describe your process for writing “Possibility.”

I was allowed a sneak peek of the museum before it opened. I walked through the galleries, taking in and talking to each piece, imagining what the art or artists might say back to me. I realized that I was physically and artistically in a space that those artists made for me. If not for them and their struggles to be seen and heard, my art might not have a platform. I felt a deep gratitude. I wanted to make sure my poem captured that feeling.

This reopening felt like a time to ask: Where have we been? Where are we going? These questions remind us of how far we’ve come and the work that still needs to be done. That is where possibility comes in. While pondering possibility and legacy, I allowed my poem to take me where it wanted. I am grateful for the thank you letter/ode/call-to-action/welcome that it turned into.

2. Can you talk about the role of performance in your work?

My work has always been rooted in performance. My mother is a professional singer and raised me to be a singer as well. Her mother, my grandmother, was a gospel singer. Her father, my grandfather, was a pastor and knew how to move a congregation. I come from a long line of folks who use/d their voices to affect people.

As far as poetry goes, there is a music and a sermon to it. If I am reading a poem and I maintain the same volume and tone, eventually the audience will stop listening. If I modulate my voice with the meaning of each word or phrase, if I say the word “possibility” like a celebration, the audience will lean in and let me guide them.

3. As a writer, what is your most essential tool (besides your pen!). Why?

Community! That is a mixture of the community of the books on my shelf and the brilliant writers who wrote them, various artist groups that I frequent, and being out in the world observing the people who inhabit it. I see my writing and art as a means to strengthen community and (hopefully) make the world an easier place in which we can exist. Without my community, not only would my art not be good, but it would also lack purpose.

4. Can you tell us a bit about the poems and themes in your debut poetry collection, Remedies for Disappearing (2023)?

Remedies for Disappearing is an exploration of the various ways Black people disappear and resist disappearing, specifically Black girls in predominantly white spaces. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut, where I was one of less than 1% of Black kids in a school of 1,200 students. It was often lonely, and I struggled with being hyper visible while simultaneously being overlooked.

As I wrote poems to the theme of disappearing—writing about my family history, D.C. culture, the other Black girls I went to high school with, and Black girls from critical missing person posters—I began to see a thread connecting us all. That thread became a remedy to the loneliness of feeling invisible. My hope is that my book will reach anyone who has ever felt like “the only.” If that is you: I hope the poems reassure you that you are not alone.

5. There is a series of poems about prom in your book, and I hear you even hosted a prom-themed party for its release! What five women artists would you want in your prom clique? 

I LOVE this question! My prom clique would include Toni Morrison, who taught me what is possible with language; Morgan Parker, whose books always make me feel seen; Carrie Mae Weems, whose photographs make me feel both powerful and beautiful; Toi Derricotte, who has taught me so much about love and communal responsibility; and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, who did the cover of my book! We’d get a white stretch limo, blast Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and take turns waving at strangers from the sunroof!

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Sayaka Suzuki’s work investigates her identity as Japanese-born and married into an American family. She explores what it means to adopt a new country and new ideologies, mending heritages together in a new lexicon. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, and she is currently a full-time adjunct faculty member at VCU in the Department of Craft and Material Studies.

1. Tell us a bit about your work and practice.

I thought I was just a Japanese living in the United States. I never thought of myself as an immigrant…but I am, and my work is about this discovery. Discovery into my roots and heritage and this new identity that carries with it a complex psychological journey. I create works that weave stories of immigrants into digestible experiences for viewers. Stories of discovery, adaptation, and heartache. Stories of the lost and found as we search for a new definition of self in a new land. But my work is not just about immigrants, it’s about all of us. Through my art, I imagine our capacity to function as philanthropists and create with the desire to ameliorate our humanity and its fragile and delicate existence. 

2. Who or what are your sources of inspiration and influence?

I look at traditional Japanese culture and ritual with my deep desire to preserve them as an outsider. I am especially fond of the resilient culture of rural Japan that revolves around the phrase “mottainai,” to not be wasteful. I find potential in the ideas of using, reusing, upcycling, and giving things a new unexpected purpose.

I am also inspired by the American people’s history and experiences. Our resilience, potential, and sometimes our careless destructive ways hinder our own existence. We don’t need to look far to put things into perspective. And we don’t need to be remarkable, I want to capture and celebrate the mundane narratives that make us wonderfully human.

3. As an artist, what is your most essential tool (besides your hands!)? Why?

If empathy can be considered a tool, that is the most important tool in my studio practice, it’s the driving force behind what I make. Without it, I am not sure what my studio practice would look like. Whether it’s the treatment of factory-farmed animals, traditions of the Deep South, immigration issues, or the lived experiences of the people in my life, it’s my deep desire to understand what motivates my creativity. 

4. Where do you obtain your materials?

Heirloom kimono dug up from my parents’ home, porcelain slip from a local ceramic supply store, drywall and wood from hardware stores, rice paper kept from my childhood calligraphy class, and sashiko thread sent by my parents in Japan. For better or worse, I am also a collector, I find inspirational materials walking into the woods, off beaten paths, and in the deep crevices of my childhood home. 

5. Who are your favorite #5WomenArtists?

Nina Katchadourian, Judith Schaechter, Chiharu Shiota, Janine Antoni, Tanya Aguiñiga.

The Visual Arts Center of Richmond is a 58-year-old community arts center in Richmond, Virginia. Each year, the organization offers more than 1,000 visual and creative arts classes, hosts four major exhibitions by contemporary artists, and touches the lives of nearly 45,000 people through its classes, exhibitions, community programs, camps, workshops, and special events. Learn more at visarts.org.

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Painting the Town

Born in Boston, Bradley was a passionate watercolorist and avid traveler. Many of the watercolors she exhibited in annual exhibitions across America were travel sketches, filled with light, beauty, and a sense of wonder. She portrayed the mountains of New England with the same reverence that she painted the great monuments of ancient Egypt. In 1887, Bradley became a founding member of the Boston Water Color Club. Unlike the Boston Water Color Society, which excluded women, the Boston Water Color Club showcased and promoted the work of women watercolorists who faced fewer exhibition opportunities. Bradley and her four children relocated to Philadelphia in 1888, after her minister husband, Leverett, accepted a new position there. She enrolled in PAFA’s art classes and soon began exhibiting her work throughout the city. In 1897, she helped to found The Plastic Club in Philadelphia (the term “plastic” here refers to the state of an unfinished work of art) and became one of its first vice presidents. The club supported women artists by providing them with a place to meet, exhibit work, and exchange ideas.

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The Philadelphia Water Color Club

In 1900, Bradley established the Philadelphia Water Color Club (PWCC) out of her home, along with members of Philadelphia’s artistic elite. According to a 1924 article in the American Magazine of Art, the club aimed to gather support for watercolorists whose work was marginalized in larger exhibitions. PAFA’s annual shows had swelled in size and there were growing concerns over the lack of consideration for watercolor paintings that appeared to be hung in leftover spaces. Though not exclusively a women’s club, women artists were highly represented and made up half of PWCC’s initial membership. Well-respected male professors of art from the University of Pennsylvania and other schools were appointed as the officers, while Bradley maintained a seat on the executive board. In 1904, PAFA joined forces with PWCC to create a second annual exhibition dedicated to watercolors—a monumental achievement for watercolorists.

Bradley was a prolific artist whose career spanned five decades. She exhibited among America’s top artists and her work garnered critical acclaim. Efforts are underway to document Bradley’s life and body of work with the hope of recording and widely sharing her legacy.

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Amy Hughes Braden is an artist based in Washington, D.C. She works in both DIY and commercial art spaces in the D.C./Baltimore area as well as nationally. Her work is influenced by feminism, personal history, current events, and art historical imagery. 

1. Tell us a bit about your work and practice.

I gather up the constantly flowing debris of my domestic parent life. These are my primary materials, which I meld with glue, slime, resin, and paper pulp into bulbous shapes called Blobs. Material is paramount in the work, not just the collected detritus, but also the documents I shred to make the paper pulp. Glitter, cheap jewels, precious gems, and the contents of the studio dustpan are bedazzled onto the blobs. I build on feminist art traditions by utilizing these domestic and kid-friendly materials. I reject the ways in which girly/youthful pursuits are deemed kitschy, low-brow or unprofessional. I take up puffy paint and slime as rebuttal. The pile of blobs accumulates infinitely, as the faucet of material debris does not shut off.

2. Who or what are your sources of inspiration and influence?

Specific inspiration changes throughout the bodies of work. For example, in my series of paintings called Woundhead, I looked at imagery of scabs and wounds. An overarching inspiration could be distilled into the experience of inhabiting the body, and how to navigate the world with that body. 

3. As an artist, what is your most essential tool (besides your hands!)? Why? 

An X-acto knife. I don’t use it as often with my sculptures, but it was revolutionary in my painting practice. I still remember the first time I cut into a painting, and can see the impact of that liberating action in all of my work to date. 

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4. Where do you obtain your materials? 

They come to me! I do purchase some typical painting supplies but aside from that I collect all manner of trash from my life, including but not limited to: empty hand sanitizer bottles, old curtain rings, broken sunglasses, baby tylenol syringes, all manner of packaging and packing related trash, fabrics too worn to re-circulate, cloth diapers, prescription bottles, broken glass, plastic bits. 

5. Who are your favorite #5WomenArtists?

Maria Lassnig, Isa Genzken, Huma Bhaba, Danielle McKinney, Lily Van der Stokker

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) is a platform for collaborative and experimental artist-organized projects, dialogue, and advocacy. Artists curate and organize all of our programming—as an extension of their own intellectual research. Their projects can take many forms, from conversational dinners, exhibitions, field trips, film screenings, grass-roots organizing meetings, and installations, to lectures, performances, podcasts, publications, symposia, workshops, and more.

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Ginny Treanor: How did you come to work in photography? 

Joanne Leonard: I graduated from [University of California] Berkeley with a social sciences degree, but I also studied art there. At the time, there were no photography courses, so I also took classes at a technical college. After that, I bought my own enlarger and built darkrooms for myself in closets within rented spaces. In the early 1960s, I lived in West Oakland, California, where I began to photograph. In 1968, I had my first exhibition at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, and then I was invited to be the official photographer for the American Olympic team at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. My “life in photography” might be said to have gone forward from there. 

GT: The first work you ever exhibited in a museum was Sonia (pregnant woman hanging laundry) (1966). I imagine that this was a shocking image for the time. What was the reaction to it?   

JL: I had printed the photograph very small—only 3 ½ in. square—and surreptitiously while at work in a commercial photo lab. Perhaps [its size] helped make it acceptable in its early debut? By 1970, it was reproduced in the Life Library of Photography’s Great Themes volume, so this photograph had some unexpected respectability. By contrast, Journal of a Miscarriage (1973), which was made after my own miscarriage that year, was not readily received. It was only published in its complete form in 2008 in my own book Being in Pictures: An Intimate Photo Memoir.  

GT: You’ve used the term “intimate documentary” to describe your work. How do you define that term? 

JL: My definition is meant to go against the typical understanding of “documentary photography.” Documentary is generally conceived to define photographs that look outward—at and into the lives of others—and is associated with a degree of “objectivity.” I use the term “intimate documentary” as almost an oxymoron—to claim “documentary” as (at least partly) a subjective, personal, and inward-looking process.   

GT: It is still rare to see images of men made by women and even more rare to see them in vulnerable positions. Can you speak to the presence of men in your work? 

JL: I’ve photographed male partners and family members nude, in the shower, shaving, in bed, asleep, and with children because each moment was a crucial part of my central project to capture the daily life around me. If my photographs of men stand out, perhaps it’s because the general expectation is to see men in public and powerful roles…not in more private realms.  

GT: What do you think your influence has been on the field of photography?  

JL: I hope it would be for [making] images of things, places, and people from women’s realms and private spaces—from a woman’s own perspective. But a large body of my work is in photo collage, made with the goal of juxtaposing the intimate with social questions or political issues that are circulating today in the world. I would happily be known for distinguished photo collage work as well.  

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Washington, D.C.-based duo Valerie Wiseman and Naoko Wowsugi, also known as Very Sad Lab, have offered sad plant evaluation, intake, rehabilitation, and plant care education since 2019.

1. Tell us about your work and practice.

Very Sad Lab is a houseplant rehabilitation and research-based community art project. By rehabilitating sad plants, sharing resources, and providing plant education, we aim to build sustainable and greener D.C. communities. We operate nomadically through collaborative pop-ups and via a satellite lab at Eaton House DC.

From an intersection of art, science, ecology, and horticulture, Very Sad Lab seeks to create a greener D.C. by connecting people to nature through plants. Through ongoing plant rehabilitation and research, we are building long-term relationships between plants and people that are rooted in the intentional practices of attention to and care of plants.

2. Who or what are your sources of inspiration and influence?

We are both amateur horticulturists. Our sources of inspiration come from building on our own failures with plants and our struggles to cultivate better green thumbs.

There are so many great resources in the D.C. area. Our favorite local green-thumb programs are:

• DC Urban Gardener’s Network
• Slow Food DC and Share A Seed
• Plantita Power
• Cultivate the City
• City Blossoms
• ​​DC Department of Parks and Recreation Urban Garden Education Program
• grounded

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3. As an artist, what is your most essential tool (besides your hands!)? Why?

Humor. A good sense of humor has the power to heal, and we believe plants love laughing with us. Very Sad Lab turns the common human failure of making plants sad into positive, creative, and therapeutic experiences.

4. Where do you obtain your materials?

We obtain and share materials with D.C. communities. Our current exhibition Very Sad Lab: The Incubator at Transformer is a living, growing exhibition and resource lab. Over the last few months, we have collected clippings of plants from plant parents (participants) to propagate in our installation, an indoor nursery. At the close of the exhibition on March 19, 2022, Incubator plants will be adopted by new plant parents throughout D.C., creating a network of green connections across the city.

We also received generous sponsorship from Logan Hardware, A Few Cool Employee-Owned Hardware Stores, and Topo Chico USA for materials used in the exhibition.

5. Who are your favorite #5WomenArtists?

Several big supporters of Very Sad Lab: Dawne Langford, a documentary filmmaker and producer; Elizabeth Grace Tuten, an artist and journalist; and Georgie Payne, a curator and editor of Dirt. We also love Liz Keehan, host of The Indoor Garden, an instructional TV show produced in the Washington, D.C., metro area in the 1990s, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an American politician, activist, and mastermind in gathering people via social media. She has done a plant repotting session on Instagram live. 

Transformer is a Washington, D.C.-based, artist-centered, non-profit visual arts organization. Founded in June 2002 by artists & arts organizers, Transformer connects, elevates, and serves diverse emerging artists and arts leaders. Transformer develops innovative exhibition and program platforms, both independently and through global partnerships, to present artists’ evolving ideas and work, advance new and best visual arts practices, and engage audiences with emerging contemporary art.

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Williams, a Washington, D.C. native and interdisciplinary artist, is a tinkerer and doodler whose work navigates hierarchies of taste. She investigates our complex relationship with food culture, materiality, home and territory, and the subtext of politeness. This year, she will work with Hamiltonian Fellows as a Hamiltonian Mentor.

1. Tell us about your work and practice.

I do well designing accumulated simple gestures of care. Hand stitching and puppet stop motion animation are processes I lean toward. I have intuitive conversations with materials while thinking about topics over long stretches of time. I never exactly know what a project will look like.

I like to read about hierarchies in organization and the things that resist them; the dirt or “matter out of place.” I used to think that what I found tasteful belonged to me, but I now understand how these hierarchies inform our preferences, what communities we consider legitimate, our social coding, and what belongs and what does not.

2. Who or what are your sources of inspiration and influence?

I look to food as a map of culture, tracking major historical events, shifts in power, and migrations of communities—voluntary and forced. Understanding how and why a food is made is a direct introduction to new communities.

I’m interested in storytelling that is not often heard or paid attention to, and I am struck by folks that do this well: Claudia Rankine, Alexander Chee, Legacy Russell, José Esteban Muñoz, the folks at Cabinet magazine, Chris Ware, and Philip Guston.

I love falling down rabbit holes. I learned that elephants hear with their feet. Apparently, many animals do. Information like this might change the way I design how a puppet moves or how I arrange pieces of sculpture.

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3. As an artist, what is your most essential tool (besides your hands!)? Why?

Any device that tells time. Since I started animating, I’ve become more aware of time passing. I took for granted how effortlessly I could witness movement until I had to break it down pose by pose. I pose the puppet then walk back and forth from the camera to take a picture.

4. Where do you obtain your materials?

I love material that has lived a life before I can work with it, so trash is great. I’ll buy raw material, save the leftover pieces and sort out different piles on my studio floor, a place to test out what a material is capable of doing. My large sculptures feed my stop motion projects this way. I love a good remnant pile at a fabric store—the stuff sold cheap and in bulk because it’s deemed not useful feels like an important place to start.

5. Who are your favorite #5WomenArtists?

Senga Nengudi, Simone Leigh, Saya Woolfalk, Greer Lankton, and Lisa Yuskavage.

Hamiltonian Artists is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that builds a dynamic community of innovative artists and visual art leaders by providing professional development opportunities and advancing their entrepreneurial success through initiatives including a two-year fellowship, exhibitions, and public programs. They engage with artists at all levels of their careers as fellows, program presenters, mentors, and community members.

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Pursuing Photography

Though born in Boston, Orkin grew up in Hollywood during the 1920s and ’30s. Her mother performed in a vaudeville act and later in silent films, and Orkin’s childhood was steeped in the excitement and glamor of the movie industry. Though she achieved a successful career in photography, Orkin initially pursued filmmaking, joining MGM Studios as their first female messenger (a position available, in part, due to World War II and lack of available men for such roles). Ultimately, though, the cinematographers’ union did not accept women, and Orkin turned her professional ambitions to photojournalism, a field where women were increasingly making their mark.

Behind the Scenes

Music, movies, and celebrities were common subjects in Orkin’s photography. Largely self-taught, she honed her technique through practice and experimentation. Her strength was capturing the less staged sides of her celebrity subjects. In 1950, Life magazine hired Orkin to photograph Julie Harris’s Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding. In her photograph of Ethel Waters, Carson McCullers, and Julie Harris from the after party, Orkin’s cinematic eye gives viewers a sense of the joy, relief, and anticipation the actors and writer felt as they awaited reviews. In the black-and-white image, McCullers rests her head on Waters’s chest. Waters has an amused expression, and McCullers looks concerned, lost in her own thoughts. Harris, at the right of the image, raises an espresso cup to her mouth while holding a lit cigarette. While the performance was the marquee event of the night, Orkin skillfully captured this more revealing moment.

Her Own Woman

In Ruth Orkin: A Photo Spirit (Hatje Cantz, 2021), curator Kristen Gresh describes Orkin’s approach to the male-dominated field of photojournalism. While the photographer had published work in Life, the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and Ladies’ Home Journal, most of her projects were independent or freelanced. As Orkin herself said, “Years ago I would become interested in a subject, such as classical musicians or Israel, that no editor wanted to assign. So, I’d shoot a story on my own and then sell it. Millions of people would see these photographs mainly because the subjects interested me in the first place.”

A Century in Focus

NMWA’s collection holds more than 70 photographs by Orkin, from candid shots of orchestral rehearsals to images of her travels in Israel and Italy. One hundred years after her birth, she is celebrated for her close attention to expression and the endearing humanity present in her photographs.

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Along with her husband, artist Percy F. Albee, and the couple’s five boys, Albee lived in Providence; Paris; New York City; Bucks County, Pennsylvania; suburban New York; and rural Rhode Island for years at a time. Albee maneuvered between homemaking and art making, incorporating each new environment into her prints.

Process and Preparation

Albee’s 1947 study of Manhattan’s Sub-Treasury building illuminates the artist’s process and captures the energy of the city. Skyscrapers erupt behind the Greek Revival building, cars and pedestrians dot the street, and flags adorn the skyline. The artist sketched this subject on site, indicating its general forms, shading, and jotting down notes, an essential first step in her method. As with her other wood engravings, Albee would have then taped the drawing to a piece of Chinese boxwood, traced its outlines onto the block, cut away the pieces she wished to leave white, and applied ink to the remaining sections.

Capturing Time

Albee’s Cicada—Brood X (1970) demonstrates her artistic capabilities. The print documents a pair of cicadas perched on the stems of wildflowers. Each blade of grass is delicately rendered; the hairy flower stems, imperfect petals, and lacy cicada wings appear almost tactile; and the low sun beams in ethereal spirals. The print encapsulates the sights of summer and signifies one of Albee’s favorite themes: the passage of time. Since the eastern U.S. just experienced the most recent appearance of Brood X cicadas, many are aware that these creatures live below ground for 17 years and spend only a brief, noisy time above ground to mate before dying off.

Made With Love

Albee’s legacy was fondly remembered by her son Percy Frederick Albee Jr., who went by P. Frederick Albee, during a retrospective of his mother’s work at NMWA in 1999. Albee Jr. recalled that his mother observed and engraved the world with love. Alongside her well-known landscapes, she also made prints depicting her husband and children, a funeral for a family pet, and even an elaborate prank she played on a family friend.

For all of her engravings, Albee only ever executed one self-portrait. Completed in 1966, Self-Portrait shows the artist’s hands as she engraves a woodblock, her face out of view. As Albee Jr. described, “She is saying to her viewers, ‘If you want to know me, don’t look at my face, look at my hands. They are the instruments of my character.’”

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