“My dad was a college professor when you could afford to live in the Berkley Hills.  My mother made pottery, stained glass, and made her clothes. She was self-educated and loved history. My mother had a rough childhood and turned herself into a woman of knowledge. We knew we were loved, but she was a difficult woman. I learned from my mother that creativity takes courage. She was fearless. I left home and refused to go to college. I was broke and out there, but I learned to make things I need. I couch-surfed a lot. I was very pretty and got away with doing nothing. People are nicer to attractive people and life was easy for me. 

It wasn’t always like that. I was the fat kid in childhood with white hair, white skin and pale blue eyes. I made it worse by taking up the cello. The first 12 years were rough and my mother was hard on me about being overweight. She put me on a different diet than others in my family.  The weight came off and people started noticing me. I went from the chubby kid to the pretty girl. Boys who once made fun of me and called me ‘Steamroller’ didn’t recognize me and tried to date me. I thought I had everyone fooled. It was a relief to know I wouldn’t have to fight for attention or kindness because of my appearance. I didn’t know at the time what a privilege my looks were. I lucked out, but I had nothing to do with it. 

I got to experience San Francisco in the 70s. The drugs and the partying.  At age 20 I was tired of drifting and married a guy I had known for six weeks. I was stubborn enough to make it work for a while. My life is a series of mimicry. I can be anything you want me to be. I can write great poetry but is a version of other great poets and not mine. I can mimic voices, accents, animal noises. I did a renaissance fair and made lots of money because of Lucille Ball, Sally Fields and Dolly Parton. They were the three women playing in my head when I was doing comedy in Elizabethan tongue. I can do something like someone else, but nothing felt original to me. I felt like a fraud. It was in me to be creative, so I started taking pictures. I did some modeling in my 20s but preferred to be on the other side of the lens. Photography was a chance to share the beauty around me. I loved to take pictures of faces in moments of joy. 

The transition from 12 to 15 years old was fabulous but the transition from 50 to 52 was hard. There was a self-portrait assignment for National Geographic. I put it off until there were 24 hours left. In my head, I was still a smoking-hot 25 year old in size five jeans. I didn’t want to put up a straight shot of a fat, older woman I didn’t recognize. So I included the self-portrait that was the first good picture I took years ago when I got my first camera. I wanted to show I was once young and beautiful so people could see I wasn’t always this. I was nude in the National Geographic portrait because that was painful. I didn’t put on any makeup except for lipstick because my mother would tell me to put my lips on. I set up my camera and my remote and hid my naked parts with the portrait.  

The look on my face was the mournfulness and loss I felt. I noticed that I was becoming ignored as an older woman. That was hard because I was used to people being interested in me. It is a horrible feeling to become invisible and dismissed like you are disappearing. In other societies, older women become revered and their wisdom is sought out. Not in this country. Women ignore you too, especially young women.  The response to that portrait from women all over the world was healing for me. There were messages from women from Iran, Mexico, England, and India. Women from other cultures getting older saying they felt this too. That photography was life-changing and affirmed that I understood photography and emotional connection. That connection was worth the risk of exposing myself. I still feel like the girl inside the picture. 

We moved to Mobile because of my husband’s job. He also embraces life all of the way. We want to become part of the fabric of society and nudge people forward. Mobile is Disneyland for photography and I love shooting here. I don’t have a drop of ambition, but I live a rich fantasy life in my head and my brain is a circus. That is good enough.”