Welcome to no. 48 in our series Poignant Pics where our editor, Diana Nicholette Jeon, writes about Susan Rosenberg Jones' image, “Teatime”

A Woman of “a Certain Age…”

“I considered what it meant to be sixty-six. The same number as the original American highway, the celebrated Mother Road that George Maharis, as Buz Murdock, took as he tooled across the country in his Corvette, working on oil rigs and trawlers, breaking hearts and freeing junkies. Sixty-six, I thought, what the hell. I could feel my chronology mounting, snow approaching. I could feel the moon, but not see it. The sky was veiled with a heavy mist illuminated by the perpetual city lights. When I was a girl the night sky was a great map of constellations, a cornucopia spilling the crystalline dust of the Milky Way across its ebony expanse, layers of stars that I would deftly unfold in my mind … I’m still the same person, I thought, with all my flaws intact, same old bony knees, thanks be to God.”

—  Patti Smith, M Train, October 2015

Some days I look in the mirror, and I think, "You look great!" Other days I would do anything I could to avoid a mirror but finding myself confronted by one, I think, "God, you look like an old hag. What the heck happened to you?" Such is the love-hate relationship I have with growing older. In researching this article, I read many quotes on aging by older women. It seems that not all suffer from this same feeling. Some fight it with every bone in their body; others give in to it and adapt beautifully. I think I am vain enough to want the former, but not wealthy, brave, nor shallow enough to go through with it.

That's what so intrigued me about this image, Teatime, by Susan Rosenberg Jones. The woman pictured is sexy without being young; the woman seems comfortable with herself. She's not trying to hide her body and the age marks, yet she is wearing attire that a 16-year-old girl could just as easily don. It's a paradox, just like aging and being a woman are. We still feel inside like our younger self, but we have the wisdom gained through many, many cycles around the sun. We still want to be appreciated for our outer appearance, but we know we don't look like we once did. There is a push-pull with a firm comfort with who we are inside and perhaps less comfort with how our outer self appears in the mirror.

Anyone who has seen Susan's work knows that she has concentrated on topics that typically affect someone later in life, all seen through a veil of sensitivity and love. In particular, her self-portraits deal with aging and acceptance as subject matter. Like many of us, the pandemic changed her lifestyle. In Rosenberg Jones' case, she turned the camera on herself as she and her husband were locked down in their high-rise NYC apartment. She told me, "Michelle Obama described a 'mild depression' which I understood completely. As the pandemic, toxic political and social climate, and general quality of life presented a troublesome reality, I continued to make these photographs into 2021. Anxiety about aging and isolation remains, albeit with some hope for the future mixed in."

For this image, she sat in her living room in her mother's antique chair, holding a prized painted teacup, and imagined herself having afternoon tea. She said, "When I viewed the image, I thought it to be a statement about memory, precious objects, body language, and aging." 

This specific self-portrait seemed slightly different from many of them, perhaps due to the combination of heirloom cup, pose, crop, and attire. There is also the severity of the focal point being mid-body, something that many of us "of a certain age" may be less inclined to show as readily. While appearing entirely comfortable in her skin, within this work, Susan also seemed a bit more self-judging, like me viewing myself in the mirror on what I would consider to might be a "bad" day. (I doubt she has those. Susan looks fantastic for the age recently stated on FB on her last birthday. Having met her in person, I was shocked because she had the appearance and demeanor of someone 12 years younger. Whatever she has in that teacup, I need a boatload of it, and now.) It's the crop and the expression on her face that leads me to this ' judgey' conclusion.

I'm a fan of Rosenberg Jones' work, and I urge you to visit the entire series on her website. I am not the only one taken with it, as it earned her an Honorable Mention in the Self-Portrait Series category of the 2021 Julia Margaret Cameron Awards.

I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next. Bravo, Susan!

Artist Bio

Susan Rosenberg Jones, based in New York City, is a portrait and documentary photographer focused on home, family, and community.

Building 1, a series about the original tenants in the apartment complex where she lives was exhibited in a solo show at Camerawork Gallery, Scranton, PA in the Fall of 2016. In December 2019 several images from Building 1 were displayed at apexart Gallery in Tribeca.

Widowed in 2008, Susan remarried in 2012. Second Time Around celebrates her new relationship, in portraits. Second Time Around was selected for the Portfolio Showcase 9 exhibit at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft Collins, CO in 2016, received Honorable Mention in the 2017 Baxter Street at CCNY Annual Juried Competition, and was named a 2017 Critical Mass Top 50 finalist.

Widowed (formerly titled Widow/er), a portrait and text series, was named a 2021 Critical Mass Top 50 finalist. The work was exhibited at the Griffin Museum in the Fall of 2019. Selections from Widowed and Second Time Around were exhibited at the Howland Cultural Arts Center in Beacon, NY, in January 2020.

Susan’s work has been published in Lenscratch, Fraction, Float Magazine, The American Scholar, and F-Stop Magazine. She has participated in numerous juried group exhibitions.

More of her work can be seen at: www.susanrosenbergjones.com

Author Bio

Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.