Who Wears a Mask?

Photo www.barbaratyroler.com

I'm comfortable with masks. You have to be, when your past and present are irreconcilable, when you straddle different worlds, constantly calibrating language and body language, treading the tightrope of mannerisms and mores, as you segue from one to the other. It becomes second nature, and there is no hypocrisy involved, only the universal imperative to make others comfortable. You yourself are always comfortable in your skin, as the French say, "bien dans sa peau," only you have more than one skin to slip into.
But isn't it true of everyone to some extent, that as we play our many roles in life, child and parent, lover and colleague, we don subtly different masks?
In the photo above, a fragment of gold-thread embroidered velvet overlays my face like a mask. The fabric comes from my grandmother, and was used in her day to wrap fresh linens. I've framed a section of it on a wall in my home in North Carolina, where it hangs, a little incongruous perhaps, but comfortable in its own skin, so to speak.

Photo Exhibit Poster Up!

Excited to see the poster and flyers for this photo exhibit, in which I am one of seven writers photographed in conjunction with the anthology I edited, Mothers & Strangers, to be published early spring 2019.

Women, Writers, and Images

I am thrilled to be one of seven women writers photographed for an exhibition, Mothers, Daughters & the Writing Life, on display at Block Gallery in Raleigh September through November 2018. The photographers are Barbara Tyroler, who made the stylized portrait below of me on my website, and Elizabeth Maatheson. I will be in illustrious company: Jaki Shelton Green, NC Poet Laureate, Frances Mayes, best-selling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Jill McCorkle, and more. especially gratifying: the exhibition was inspired by the anthology I co-edited, with Lee Smith as my co-editor, Mothers & Strangers, a collection of essays on motherhood by 28 celebrated Southern writers.

Photo by Barbara Tyroler.