in the glare of the headlights, the trees as buttery-soft as the leather seats, the engine’s purr drowning out any rustling leaves. As they spun around one bend, Kate saw two silver circles in the night—an animal’s eyes, a deer maybe, maybe a coyote—but then they swung past, the headlights moving on, and the animal melted back, indistinguishable now, a stroke of ink in a bottomless night.
MIRANDA
SERIES 2, Personal papers
BOX 9, Diary (1982–1993)
* * *
APRIL 18 1986
I’ve been giving more lectures lately. When Hal asked me to do the first one last year, down in the city, I was skeptical. Some days I can barely talk to the grocery store clerk without breaking out in a sweat. How could I do a lecture? The first one was hard. I stumbled over everything. I hate stumbling.
But now that I have the format all figured out, I like the talks. They have a pattern. I put on the same black velvet suit, I stride out on stage, I hit my mark. I say thank you, I turn on the slide projector and one of my photographs blares up onto the screen. It is magical to have my pictures behind me, next to me. Bigger than me. I feel like I am inside them, like I am in the darkroom making them again for the first time. Even the ones I hate now, like Margins, seem somehow precious in this space. 30 minutes and questions. I am in control.
Afterward, riding the high, I don’t even remember to be nervous talking to all the doe-eyed college students who dream of making it big. Sometimes I even believe they will make it—based on nothing, just the wattage of their smiles and the purple dots of the spotlights still patterning my vision.
SERIES 2, Personal papers
BOX 7, Lecture notes and ephemera
FOLDER: Mills College (March 1986)
* * *
Thank organizers Pamela Thomas, Roxanne O’Hara, Cecilia Patterson—Mills College Art Club, Mills College Student Fund
Title: “Photography and the Female Gaze”
1. Empty Spaces
Whose gaze hunts for the woman?
We want her in the middle. We want her easy to pin down.
(Slides ES #1, #4, discuss)
2. Capillaries
Women at center. Self-portraiture—couldn’t afford models.
Tell the story about fake blood staining theater seats (funny?)
Smiles are secret—men in photo don’t see them—implies female viewer
(Slides Caps #3, #6, #17, discuss)
3. Mothering as method
(Slides: Birth Unit #5, Called Child #8, #10, discuss)
4. Male gaze, female photographers
Laura Mulvey, 1975, on male gaze in cinema:
women = “to-be-looked-at” / men = “bearers of the look”
Women only as desired objects, not as desirers
Female photographers reverse that formulation
addressing it, adopting it, forcing it (ref. Cindy S)
5. Photography lets us control our surroundings
Susan Sontag: “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge—and, therefore, like power.”
Men control so much of women’s lives—homes, finances, sex, happiness, work
Photography lets women exert control
construct new worlds where we reimagine our intimate relationships
use utopias as blueprint for equal partnerships—as J & I have done
Thank organizers again
Q&A
Remind about SPARKLING water for stage and NO questions about Nangussett
SERIES 2, Personal papers
BOX 9, Diary (1982–1993)
* * *
JULY 12 1986
Jake has been working, but he won’t show me any of it. Most days I wrap myself in my darkroom, or I wander down the hill and into town and along the beach with my camera, looking, looking. It’s quiet. The people from town mostly leave me alone. Except Kid, a hippie guy who lives on the mesa. Sometimes we run into each other and chat. People walk by us and stare like they just saw two tarantulas hugging.
AUGUST 20 1986
Hal asked me if I would consider going across the country for lectures. Other cities—Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia. Same thing, he promised. Just more places.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Jake worries about the travel. The attention, the crowds. Will I get tired? What if something happens? And what would we do with Theo? Because of course Jake would come with me.
The talks themselves bother him, too. He thinks they seem fake. Rote. Spitting out a chewed-up version of feminist theory. Watering down my work, he says. Why explain what you do? Why tell them what to think about it?
Men aren’t afraid of misinterpretation. It’s not dangerous to them. Women, we know bad things can happen when someone misreads you.
Jake doesn’t like to be told he’s part of the problem. He prefers to keep the problem theoretical.
I’m trying to start fewer arguments, so I just tell him (and it’s true) that I like the pretending