DESCRIPTION
A story as old and powerful as Joan’s has inspired many creative works, and I in turn was inspired by many of them. Leonard Cohen’s beautiful song, Joan of Arc, with its haunting melody and lyrics loaded with metaphors and archetypes, was an early catalyst. George Bernard Shaw’s play, Saint Joan and Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc are important literary interpretations of Joan. I wanted to add a visual component to the body of work about Joan. I knew that I needed to discover her for myself.
When I went to France in 2005 in search of Joan of Arc, my intention was to deconstruct her. I sought to explore and question those human characteristics that seemed missing from the myth surrounding her. Did she have normal human desires for sex, children, and education? I began to make photographs of the ubiquitous statues found throughout France. I appropriate the “reality” of the sculptors to deconstruct the myth in the same way as they appropriated events to construct the myth.
AUTHOR
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & HONORS:
2012 Mystique de Jeanne d'Arc, Old Ursuline Convent, New Orleans, LA
2003 Twenty Years of Graduate Photography, Creative Research Laboratory, Austin, TX
2001 St. Edward’s University: Art Faculty Exhibition, Austin, TX
1999 Texas Photographic Society: National Juried Exhibit, San Antonio, TX
1997 Cimetierie du Pére Lachaise: Projex Gallery, Austin, TX
1997 International Photography Competition: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
1995 New American Talent: Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin, TX
1995 Bucking the Texan Myth: Austin Visual Arts Association, Juror’s Award, Austin, TX
1994 Crossroads/Encrucijadas: Galleria Sin Fronteras, Austin, TX
1993 Gender: Fact or Fiction: Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin, TX
1992 Portraits de la Vie Chicano: Cité Universitaire, Paris, France
1991 Texas Photographic Society: Juror’s Award, Austin, TX
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS:
Archdiocese of New Orleans: New Orleans, LA
Gernsheim Collection: Universitiy of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Bibliothéque national de France:Paris, France
Musée Carnavalet: Paris, France
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS:
Austin, TX; Los Angeles, CA, Santa Barbara, CA, Orlando, FL, New Orleans, LA; Houston; TX; San Antonio, TX; Mexico City, Mexico; Paris, France; Denver, CO
