Southern Women Don’t Sweat

I was born in Mississippi, spent my formative years in Louisiana, and lived in Texas for high school and college. For the most part, my life has been spent in the Deep South. I know the people, the traditions, the places, yet I have never felt like I was a part of it. Like I was a Southerner. Now as a young woman, I often question why I think of things a certain way. Why do I think picking pecans is a lady’s hobby?
The photographs I made for the series Southern Women Don’t Sweat, They Glisten are of objects I have determined to be particularly feminine in the southern part of the United States. For example, the quilts I included in the series are all from my grandmothers. Quilting is tradition that Southern ladies have carried down for generations. One of them was a joint effort between my Grandmother and I to finish it. The items are all from memories in my life in which I thought to myself, “That is what it means to be a lady.”
This collection of photographs should make the viewer question what she or he thinks is “feminine.” By photographing the objects in a studio setting, they are taken out of their everyday setting. This makes it easier for the viewer to decide if the object in front of them can be deemed feminine.