Absent Friends
…More recently I had been collecting photographs of people (not just women) whom I admired. They were often writers or musicians whose work has meant a lot to me. They were all people for whom a public image was secondary, undesirable or troublesome. In fact I came to think that these women were often considered ‘difficult’ and so they may have been. They would not have had the support networks to ease the sharp edges that came with their creativity. Bette Davis said that if a man speaks his mind he’s a strong character; if a woman does, she’s a bitch.
The women include writers Rebecca West (author of Black Lamb, Grey Falcon, The Thinking Reed, The Fountain Overflows), Patricia Highsmith (author of the five Ripley books, Ediths Diary, The Cry of the Owl), Elizabeth Jane Howard, and musicians Nina Simone, Karen Dalton, Aretha Franklin and Gillian Welch.
EM 2014