MINNESOTA PHOTO STILLS

In the summer of 1973, I came out as a lesbian in the attic of the house in that contained the original Amazon bookstore. The bookstore consisted of two cardboard boxes of books in the basement of this condemned Minneapolis house. 

At the time, lesbians were considered perverts and deviants.  I choose to photograph lesbians to show what I saw: love, strength, beauty, joy.  The women trusted me. I kept my images private for over forty years to protect the women.

The photo "Baby Dykes Twins" was taken a few months later. Cydni James Irish accompanied me to Ohio University as I finished my last year of studying photography. Then, we broke up. After college, I traveled extensively. See the introduction to the Oregon photo stills for more information.

When I returned to Minnesota, I needed a new career. I attended Dunwoody Trade School and became the first woman to graduate in the construction fields. It was a challenging experience. After graduation, I worked for IBM repairing computers when the first personal computer was released. It allowed users to write three sentences without correction paper. Many of these photos were taken during those years. I needed to be with women on land to stay sane.

In 2016, I traveled through Belgium and visited a museum featuring large poster-sized images of 1980s rock stars and their female groupies. I felt that the portrayal of women in the photographs was demeaning. I vowed to showcase my photographs somewhere, so people wouldn't assume that those images represented all women.

In 2019, I reached out to a new curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Casey Riley. I was determined to show her my photos. I walked in with a binder of loose black-and-white prints, some of which are displayed here. She said this kind of opportunity rarely happens, and about nine months later, the MIA mounted a one-woman show of my photographs called "Strong Women, Full of Love." The impact was amazing. To my knowledge, it was the first time lesbians were portrayed in an international institute as human beings. It was one of the top ten exhibitions of 2019 in the Twin Cities. 

Some of my photographs are displayed in the Minnesota public television documentary (TPT): Out North: MNLGBTQ History. This program explores the untold past of Minnesota's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community and celebrates the strides the state has made since the gay liberation movement began in the 1970s.

Check out some of my photographs in Dianna Hunter's Book Wild Mares: My Lesbian:  My Back-to-the-Land Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2018).