Wade’s Grandmothers (Gram and Granny) were both diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in within months of one another. They lost the battle a few years later, again within months of one another. As a result, she has become obsessed with absorbing her Grandmothers’ and consequently her own past. As they struggled to retain their identity and their memories, she is now determined to gather them and add them to her own. Collected items and personal locations belonging to and inspired by Wade’s matriarchal lineage are the heart of this work, alongside her physical and emotional inheritance. She uses herself as a representation of all the women who came before alongside everyday things laden with stories themselves and so many memories. Her own memories and those given to her by family, plus a vast collection of family photographs, she builds narratives within the frame. Through the years and through the course of creating, the narrative stray into personal reflections.
Rooted in a deep reverence for her materials, Wade sees plants not merely as subjects but as collaborators. Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer describes plants as “animated, living beings,” who “breathe, dance, and preen.” This understanding shapes her approach, allowing Wade to engage with plants as active participants in the creative process rather than passive materials. Lumen prints, created by exposing organic materials directly onto black and white photography paper and exposed in the sun, embrace the unpredictable alchemy of light, time, and chemistry. Each print is a conversation between the ephemeral and the permanent. The everyday pigments added, the ghostly imprints left behind, and the shifting hues reflect the delicate traces of time, like drifting memories.
Wade’s Grandmothers (Gram and Granny) were both diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in within months of one another. They lost the battle a few years later, again within months of one another. As a result, she has become obsessed with absorbing her Grandmothers’ and consequently her own past. As they struggled to retain their identity and their memories, she is now determined to gather them and add them to her own. Collected items and personal locations belonging to and inspired by Wade’s matriarchal lineage are the heart of this work, alongside her physical and emotional inheritance. She uses herself as a representation of all the women who came before alongside everyday things laden with stories themselves and so many memories. Her own memories and those given to her by family, plus a vast collection of family photographs, she builds narratives within the frame. Through the years and through the course of creating, the narrative stray into personal reflections.
Rooted in a deep reverence for her materials, Wade sees plants not merely as subjects but as collaborators. Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer describes plants as “animated, living beings,” who “breathe, dance, and preen.” This understanding shapes her approach, allowing Wade to engage with plants as active participants in the creative process rather than passive materials. Lumen prints, created by exposing organic materials directly onto black and white photography paper and exposed in the sun, embrace the unpredictable alchemy of light, time, and chemistry. Each print is a conversation between the ephemeral and the permanent. The everyday pigments added, the ghostly imprints left behind, and the shifting hues reflect the delicate traces of time, like drifting memories.
Wade’s Grandmothers (Gram and Granny) were both diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in within months of one another. They lost the battle a few years later, again within months of one another. As a result, she has become obsessed with absorbing her Grandmothers’ and consequently her own past. As they struggled to retain their identity and their memories, she is now determined to gather them and add them to her own. Collected items and personal locations belonging to and inspired by Wade’s matriarchal lineage are the heart of this work, alongside her physical and emotional inheritance. She uses herself as a representation of all the women who came before alongside everyday things laden with stories themselves and so many memories. Her own memories and those given to her by family, plus a vast collection of family photographs, she builds narratives within the frame. Through the years and through the course of creating, the narrative stray into personal reflections.
Throughout history, women have put their bodies, and thusly, their psyches through torturous measures trying to live up to the elusive thing that is beauty. We have constricted our breathing and injected ourselves with poison. We have teetered precariously, balancing on miniscule pedestals and we have crafted our flesh into acceptable contours. But we have not been forced into doing so. We have consensually subjected ourselves to these ridiculous and dangerous tribulations.Through a combination of technical processes, I am able to merge representations of the accepted and established notions of what is beautiful with those of my manufactured grotesque. In this manner, I hope to give way to a different definition of beauty, one of engaging oddity and lush ambiguity. Mordancage is an alternative process that when applied allows the artist to lift and manipulate the blacks in a black and white silver gelatin print.
Wade’s Grandmothers (Gram and Granny) were both diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in within months of one another. They lost the battle a few years later, again within months of one another. As a result, she has become obsessed with absorbing her Grandmothers’ and consequently her own past. As they struggled to retain their identity and their memories, she is now determined to gather them and add them to her own. Collected items and personal locations belonging to and inspired by Wade’s matriarchal lineage are the heart of this work, alongside her physical and emotional inheritance. She uses herself as a representation of all the women who came before alongside everyday things laden with stories themselves and so many memories. Her own memories and those given to her by family, plus a vast collection of family photographs, she builds narratives within the frame. Through the years and through the course of creating, the narrative stray into personal reflections.
I worked as a bartender during my college years in the cabaret of one of the premier gay clubs in the south. Around this time I took my first Photography class and began photographing these amazing people. This body of work is a retrospective of just over ten years of working with this unique and beautiful group of entertainers. I was welcomed into their world and many times felt that I had been adopted by a wondrously dysfunctional family. I learned a lot about their lives and lifestyle plus some killer make-up tips…in turn I like to think I taught them a few things as well.Many times throughout the years I felt a little like Alice in the Looking Glass. Everything seemed as one would expect…but when you looked a little closer…things were just a little bit different.
Polaroid Transfer