Meg, Antonio and Alisa
This very special lady will be wearing two hats at the fundraiser on March 3. Not only is she one of Antonio’s beloved moms, she is a fabulous artist and photographer who will be showing her work and contributing a door prize.
Meg and Antonio at his first visit to the ocean.
As a sometime attendee at Antonio’s basketball games, I can also vouch that she is a pretty hardcore wannabee middle school cheerleader. She’s going to have to take a backseat to me on that though….I’ve got my own set of skills.
The Rebelles
If you’ve been to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, Sensibilities Spa, Lola Salon and Gallery or attended Brooke Priddy and Kelledy Francis’s Sky and Sea fashion show, you’ve seen Meg’s evocative work. Meg doesn’t just take photos, she creates a whole new world for her subjects, one that I’ve always found to have a bit of the spooky, sultry South in them (the spooky, sultry South being a good thing….think Flannery O’Conner or Lucinda Williams).
Hurricane Katrina Remains
So here are a few questions for this special lady:
When did you first start exploring photography as an art form?
Right away. Photography 101 at LSU. The dark room or “dark womb” was where I felt the magic and mojo of printmaking come alive. I’ll never forget the first time I put an exposed piece of photographic paper into the developer and slowly watch the image appear under the amber lights.
The shooting was fun to me, right away, but I put more pressure on myself there. It did take a while for my own vision and point of view appear. I went through phases of Joel Peter Witkin wanna be, Keith Carter wanna be, but that’s normal and natural. It’s when I came back to the deep South (from California) and starting photography where I was from and seeing the beauty in the swamps and moss of Louisiana that I took off.
I know you have some pretty eclectic artists as inspiration…..could you name some folks?
Oh, gladly. This is one of my favorite subjects!
Sally Mann, E.J. Bellocq, Diane Arbus, Matt Mahurin, Sarah Moon, Julia Margaret Cameron, August Sander, Keith Carter, Debroah Luster
What type of situations or people grab you and inspire you to start taking photos?
Typically, it’s either the environment or an unusual physical quality about a person that intrigues me. If it’s both, simultaneously, then I’ve won the lottery! I find myself being drawn to the faces of those that likely thought they were ugly in high school. Big, kinky hair, freckle faced African Americans, big foreheads. I like to glorify each person’s uniqueness through my photography.
What or who have been some of your favorite subjects?
One local person that I love to photograph is a woman named Elizabeth. She’s beautiful, young, and covered in tattoos. She’s wonderful in front of the camera, she is completely not self consscious. She totally brings herself and has a very calming presence- it’s a perfect relationship between subject and photographer.
Was Antonio coming into your life a surprise to you or something you were looking for?
You’ve heard the phrase “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear?”. I feel like that with Antonio. Alisa and I were ready to reach out and help in some way with the community he lives in. We saw a documentary film about the rates of high school graduation for African Americans in Asheville and nationally.
When we left the movie we decided to try to contact someone from the film (it was locally produced by a young teacher). We decided to contact a woman (Ms. Earl) that heads an after school and summer program in Lee Walker Heights (where Antonio was living at the time with his grandmother, mother and siblings).
I called Ms. Earl and when hearing I was a photographer she asked if I would teach a class that summer in photography. She paired me with 10 and 11 year old boys and Alisa taught drawing to the little ones. Antonio and Alisa and I were meant to be family. I felt that right away. I was so in awe of this boy, whose father was shot and killed and has/had so little in support but who also had such a big heart and wonder for the world.
I’m the youngest of seven children and am the aunt to 15 and great aunt to one. I’ve had children around me since I was 14 (my oldest niece), so there wasn’t this panic to have children. When Alisa and I met and asked if she wanted children and she said yes, I had a bit of a “uh oh” moment, but I knew she would be worth it if she still felt like that in a few years. She changed her mind, but now we have Antonio. It’s the best thing ever!
