Spoke at UNCA about the relationship of my work to activism. Poet, Alli Marshall, wrote an article about my work. We were surprised when the Asheville weekly, “Mountain Express” featured one of my photos on the cover of the newspaper. I got a chance to meet new people from the community.
Transforming Hate: An Artist’s Book, was completed this year, eight years after it was started. We did not know if it was possible, but in March we pushed to get a few copies ready for an April PHOTO+CRAFT presentation. Entitled “Making and Meaning: Photobooks and the Social Fabric”, this Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center panel with Alejandro Cartagena, was one of thirteen events organized by Warren Wilson College here in Asheville.
The “Transforming Hate” book was published recently. The working title was “The Proposal” almost right up until it went on the press. The work on the book evolved over an eight-year period. I want to share some of the steps that I took in order to make the book. I’m hoping that in the process I can see more clearly why a price of $50 for the book does not begin to cover the cost of producing it.
The Transforming Hate project evolved from a project created at the invitation by the Montana Human Rights Network and the Holter Museum in Helena, Montana.
It had not been my intent to make a “grand” project, but to simply create an artist’s book that explored the struggle to make an artwork that might transform the white supremacist books that had been provided to me to work from.