The artist books Memento Mori and Albuquerque were inspired by glass plate negatives from an early 1900’s Albuquerque studio.  Susan Sontag said in On Photography, “All photographs are memento mori.  To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” I found myself wondering about these women – what were their lives like, what has changed and what has remained the same for women?  While working with the old negatives, I began thinking about my mother, Enid.  She was a lovely, bright woman who struggled with depression.  The artist books about her are both a tribute and an exploration of the factors that shaped her life as a woman and mother. 

My most recent books deal with such diverse themes as: death and winter (inspired by a long cold season and the passing of Taos photographer/friend Mildred Tolbert); speculation about history, art history, and Hildegard von Bingen; the "rules" of being a traveler; and the fading of our once vibrant environment.

Roland Barthes, in Camera Lucida, wrote that “pleasure passes through the image.”  For whom has this pleasure generally been constructed, and what have been its effects?  As a women’s studies instructor and as an artist, I continue to reflect on these issues and to create alternative images of women and our world.

Memento Mori	Enid	Depression
Mother	Albuquerque, 1906	1950
Constructing Femininity	Constructing Femininity, detail
	Heliocentricity