STONE

“Frankie, I’ve got no words for feelings that are tearing me apart. What would our words sound like?” I looked up at the sky. “Like thunder, maybe.”

Frankie pressed her lips against my hair. “Yeah, like thunder. And yearning.”

I smiled and kissed the hard muscle of her biceps. “Yearning,” I repeated softly. “What a beautiful word to hear a butch say out loud.”

~ Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

It’s hard to explain what exactly I am, even with words handed to me by queers from generations new and old. I need a word to tell other lesbians what I am, a word to tell gay men what I am, another for trans folks, yet another for straight people. Who am I speaking to? Why must all these words speak for me and why do so many rub against the fiber of my being? I am a butch lesbian. These fit the best, but what is heard when I say them?

This body of work contains most, but certainly not all, of the words that I want to say. Through photographs and writing, I painstakingly extracted language from ambiguity and misunderstanding. Here I am seen whole and hopefully recognized by those like me. I don’t think this is an uncommon feeling. Most, if not all, of us feel misunderstood in some way as if we are straddling some invisible line. We look to those who came before us, our friends, and the mirror to understand who we are. We try to picture ourselves as who we wish to be.

In Like Thunder and Yearning, I look to artists like JEB and Catherine Opie to understand the visual language established by lesbian photographers who came before me. Using this knowledge, and my own style, I made images that speak to my inner world: the isolation I feel, the friendships I cherish, and the love I am so lucky to witness. Photography is a place where my identity suspends in abstraction, and I no longer need language to describe me, just a way to be understood. Here I created representation for myself and my friends and wrote a love letter to every butch, and all the tenderness we hold.