Tag Archives: Birthe Havmoeller

Pandemic Shadows in Feminine Moments

We support a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza

Laurie says:

Birthe Havemoeller has published the internet magazine Feminist Moments for about 20 years from Denmark. She just published “New Works by Laurie Toby Edison” featuring four photographs from Pandemic Shadows. I am still finding interesting shadows occasionally, for a project I thought was finished.

She is also a superb photographer and I wrote about her here.

Below are the photographs and the text I wrote for Birthe. I strongly recommend looking at the rest of the magazine as well – it’s remarkable.

======================
..
Autumn leaves and shadows (Pandemic Shadows 112)
..

I walk & live in the shadow of the pandemic while photographing Pandemic Shadows everywhere. I make beauty in hard times. I started this in the lockdown and continued until very recently. It’s just about finished now. I’ve been a photographer since my late 40s. My latest project started in the lockdown looking for things to photograph. It’s my first project that didn’t involve model cooperation. It’s been very revelatory as a photographic experience.

..
Leaves and branches (Pandemic Shadows 116)
..

My books of photographs are “Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes” and “Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes” (all edited by Debbie Notkin). My photographs have been exhibited in many cities, including New York, Tokyo, Kyoto, Toronto, Boston, London, Shanghai, Seoul and San Francisco. My solo exhibition “Meditations on the Body” at the National Museum of Art in Osaka featured 100 photographs from all three of my photographic suites. My latest completed project is “Women of Japan“, clothed portraits of women from many cultures and backgrounds.

..
Berkeley flowers and leaves (Pandemic Shadows 126)
..

I most recently had Pandemic Shadows photos exhibited in ‘Light & Shadow,’ at the Valid World Hall Gallery in Barcelona. Photographs from other projects in their permanent collection were featured in “Crossing Borders,” the inaugural show of Gallery Terra-S at Kyoto Seika University.

..
Sidewalk lines (Pandemic Shadows 115)
..

I’m an activist on body image and other social justice issues. I blog with Debbie Notkin at Body Impolitic http://laurietobyedison.com/body-impolitic-blog/, talking about body image, photography, art and related issues.

======================

Debbie has deleted her Twitter account. Follow her on Mastodon.

Follow Laurie’s Pandemic Shadows photos on Instagram.

======================

Pandemic Shadows in “Feminine Moments”

Laurie says:

I’ve always admired the feminist website/ art blog Feminine Moments. It’s edited by the Danish artist Birthe Havmoeller and features fine art made by lesbian, bisexual and queer women artists worldwide. There is a monthly newsletter in addition to the website that has new work and interviews, artist’s statements and images. Her choices are always interesting and often stunning.

I subscribe to it and in a recent one she had Queer Feminist Art in Lockdown.

I immediately thought of my Pandemic Shadows project and sent her the Instagram link to the gallery. She reacted to it immediately and it is now featured on the Feminine Moments website. I also had the opportunity to see her work and it’s beautiful.

The artist’s statement below in the most recent development of my relationship to the pandemic and Pandemic Shadows. The more images I shoot, the more I am learning about light, shadows and the changes time brings. Here in San Francisco we are now in winter light and everything in shadow looks very different. I’ll be putting up some winter light images on Instagram very soon.

..

This was taken in Armstrong State Park on the Russian River before the wildfires.

..
I’ve been walking & living in the shadow of the pandemic and the lockdown, photographing the Pandemic Shadows that I see everywhere. I became interested in shadow patterns when I began taking iPhone photos. The pandemic, the isolation, and the walking I’ve been doing, have transformed my vision, making it far more emotionally involving and centered in my present life. It lets me make beauty in hard times.

..

This photo was taken in the early winter light on Dolores in San Francisco.

..
The lockdown has made me pause, observe and create images of shadows that depend on light and time and sometimes air. For me they capture an essence of this pandemic time. My work is developing very intensely, in terms of emotion, choices and differences from my previous images. The California wildfires changed the light and shadow. The people I’ve known in fire danger seem to be influencing the work as well.
..

And this was taken through the rice paper in my studio window.

..

One of the beautiful places shadows can go for me is into abstraction. I use it a lot in composition but my work has not been usually abstract. It’s good for my artist’s heart to go somewhere else.

In my usual day, shadows have become a major part of my perception. This is the first time I’ve seen myself in my art this way. It’s a shock to have the way I see change so powerfully. The world has changed so much and so quickly and my vision has inevitably followed.

..

This final image was also taken in Armstrong State Park before the wildfires. It is the first image that I shot and kept for Pandemic Shadows.
..
Follow Debbie on Twitter.