During the 26 months I have curated this feature, I've not written about an artist more than once. That's not because I like their work any less, but instead, I choose to keep showing a wide variety of great work by many living artists at all levels of their careers. Then this image crossed my path on Facebook, and in the current state of the American Experiment, I decided to break my own rule. Shane Balkowitsch is a master of creating flawless surface wet plate collodions. But that is not why I am showing you this image. It's the content. Because following the leak of the Roe document from the Supreme Court last week, several things happened in the U.S. at the state level.

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This image floated through my Facebook timeline a few months ago, and I was immediately smitten. I love the mixed media, the tissue paper, and the messiness. The wax is balled up and crinkled in places. There are tears, ridges, small pieces of text. The image catches me and makes me wonder what is happening with the women.

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So what is the story in this image, entitled Self-Portrait with Murphy (1990), besides being a hilarious photo? In my version in my head, I doubted we would ever know. And that is part of what makes it great for me: it left me with more questions than answers: Was it empathy for the cat? Absurdity? Strictly a photo set up? Was Gordon having a bad hair day? Is the attire part of the setup? Is (non-headdress) clothing his usual attire or an outfit chosen for the photo? Why is there money in the floral arrangement? Does he wear this "hat" often?

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With this series, Jonas Yip has shown us something different than we usually find in this style of photographic imagery. No lens created any part of the image. These works come only from a combination of ambient light and his hands as he explores the materiality of the emulsion and the boundaries of photographic processes.

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Weston makes “fun” images. Candy colored, with engaging characters, they make me laugh. But they go beyond that. They also make me think.

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The photos in this series begin as silver halide prints, but that is just a starting point for the final images Kauffmann creates.

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Leibrand is employed as a research scientist who works on developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven tool for health care quality measurement in Medicaid populations. This image reflects her concerns about how scientific data is sometimes used and manipulated.

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unendingly, an albatross was created using both gum and platinum-palladium processes. However, Angel often uses additional hand-applied paint when she wants a specific color to come forward, which was the case with this work. To do this, she paints into particular areas of the gum coloring to achieve her desired color in a specific spot. She also stated that using a base of platinum/palladium brings "a more polished look" to gum prints, which she said often can appear "raw."

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For me, this image is romantic in a sad, desolate sort of way. The color is beautiful, and the scenery is far different than most of us encounter in our daily travels. And then there is that glorious, late afternoon late.

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Dermott began this series of platinum-palladium portraiture work in 2018, after studying the work of Sally Mann. Her attraction to Mann was twofold; Dermott, like Mann, had also photographed her family. But even more importantly, Dermott was interested in the qualities and beauty Mann brings out in the photographic print itself.

Her portraits seemed to capture something, perhaps a moment of psychological conflict or existential youth angst. I don't find that discomfort of the sitter with the photographer, but rather via Dermott showing something about who her sitters are and how they relate in the world. The work is somber, direct, and confrontational, showing hints of Nicholas Nixon from his original image of the Brown sisters, made in 1975.

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"Beauty has become such an unfashionable word in art, so I hesitate to say this, but really there is no other answer: I'm looking for beauty, I want to participate in beauty, I want to share it with the world. It's not necessarily a romantic beauty that I'm looking for — it's about feeling an emotional connection with forces that are greater than us like nature or time, even destruction."

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In a similar though more dire mindset than historian Coffin, Eder said, "The reef was forged in the crucible of climate change, and its existence is threatened by it now. The urgency of my documentation is heightened by the fact that at present rates of rising temperatures, and given the occurrence of increasingly violent storms, the reef could disappear beneath the ocean waves in a shockingly short time, leaving the mainland unprotected and hundreds of bird species without nesting areas."

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To me, Kumi's works are a combination of sensual and tragic. The photographs are often disquieting due to her intentional use of this dichotomy. The thread winding through them is the inability of the viewer to see the faces of her models. There is attention to small detail while at the same time, she limits the specific information she wants us to see. She leaves it to her viewers to interpret the work through their cultural touchstones and imaginations.

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Her working process is something she calls 'mindless creativity.' She allows the pieces to evolve intuitively, not knowing what the result may become. Divine says that she pushes beyond what she knows and allows the magic to happen by working with the images and allowing them to speak. "Characters" (for lack of a better word) emerge, and some get replaced or left behind. Eventually, the story unfolds and becomes clear to her, all via a process of semi-controlled intuitive play. One symbol may dictate some of the others as the point of the work emerges from Divine's subconscious.

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Many tree-loving photographers manifest their adoration by making photographs of trees. I’m not someone who is quickly captivated by images of trees. I mean, sure, I like them. They are often pretty, and in their way, can be comforting as a substitute for actually being out in the world of nature. If climate makes communing with a tree challenging - due to weather or simply scarcity, as in a desert or a city of skyscrapers - then the image has even greater importance. Then there are images of trees that seek to cause us to take action urgently or we will leave our children and grandchildren an unliveable planet without trees or natural vegetation.

But Olson’s work doesn’t fit neatly into either of these boxes. She uses her photographs of trees to create 3-d, sculptural objects. They are not simply a clever manner of displaying the imagery; they are part and parcel of the conceptual underpinning of this work. Now, that hugely gets my attention!

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"I have spent the past year researching and uncovering suppressed images of Black women held in photographic collections at the Art Institute of Chicago. The images I have found and researched thus far depict the exploitation and violence towards Black women. I excavated, re-photographed, re-captioned, and re-contextualized the original works. By engaging with these images with the intervention of my hands and my body, I rescue and protect Black women's bodies and their humanity so that they can be seen and heard. With my ongoing body of work entitled Our Mothers' Gardens, I beg for more than the visibility of Black women in institutional collections and restorative justice. I also desire for the issue around institutions holding and silencing collections of visible and (in)visible violent visual depictions of Black women to be further highlighted." -Alayna Pernell

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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."

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