Photos by Divine Beauty Photography
UPDATED, July 18: Artists behind the exhibit “Generations” invited the public to partake in a family photo-booth day Saturday, July 16, from 1 to 5 p.m., at the Cutter House Gallery, in the Jefferson Cutter House, Arlington Center. Families posed and received a 5- by 7-inch print.
The trio’s photo-session focus was fun. Included in the exhibit are “bloopers,” photos of a baby smirking, as at right.
“Generations” captures grandmothers, mothers, daughters and sisters through film and photography.
The Cutter House Gallery’s current exhibit is the latest collection of the Somerville-based Divine Beauty Photography, which comprises three artists — Rose Cummings, a filmmaker, photographer, screenwriter and playwright; photographer Jim Montanaro, who has lived and worked professionally behind the lens in three continents; and Greg Dancer, a media producer and teacher.
The collection brings together more than 50 pieces of still images and film exploring familial ties among women. The idea for “Generations” germinated last fall after the photography team documented a wedding and a mother-daughter photography session.
“During the session, we were filming conversation, and we realized how much more interesting it was to hear the mother and daughter talk about their relationships while we were filming,” Cummings said during recent artist hours at the Cutter House Gallery. “The idea for ‘Generations’ kind of grew from there.”
The exhibit focuses on stills and film of mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts who talk about their relationships. They recount memories that include a mother reflecting on a newborn daughter’s hand reminding her of her grandmother’s hand and a daughter speaking of battling criticism about her weight at school and how her mother lifted her self-esteem and helped her address the issue.
“Because women tend to be more expressive and more willing to share in families, we focused mainly on the women, though we have done husbands or fathers in a photo session for this exhibit,” Montanaro said.
Besides the studio, the Divine Beauty Photography team ventured to homes, seaside houses, playgrounds, grassy fields and more to capture the subjects of “Generations.”
Among the images, poignant moments
“We used whatever space was available to tell the story. For one family, it was climbing a tree,” Montanaro said. “That was part of their story.”
During artist hours, amid of spread of candy and salted nuts, one can view a diverse array of family art: a glamour montage of a mom and daughter in matching black lace dresses; a mother, her arms interlinked with daughters and granddaughters, all uniformly dressed in matching white jeans and denim shirts of varying blues; sisters in tall leather boots, karate kicking; a pair of daughters costumed in mesh wings and flower crowns smooching the cheeks of their mom dressed in matching fairy garb.
The exhibit includes a photograph of a blind mother and young daughter snuggled on a couch with a book and stuffed animal. Cummings reflected on the poignant moments in photographing and filming this mother and daughter duo:
“I realized that the mother sees everything with her hands. There is a photograph of her touching her daughter’s face, and we realized that is how she sees her daughter, reads her expressions and sees her daughter’s moods, whether she is smiling or frowning. It was really powerful.”
The exhibit includes a black-and-white portrait of a mother cradling a swaddled, curly-headed newborn daughter to her chest. The team photographed the mother two weeks before and two weeks after the birth of her daughter.
Montanaro reflected on the photo session with Laura, the new mom: “Before the baby was born, we were asking some questions about what she thought about the future for her daughter, and at certain points Laura came to places that she hadn’t really thought of. It gave her an opportunity to reflect on what her daughter’s life would be like, and that was cool to be a part of that, to help somebody to kind of embrace their motherhood.”
During the creation of “Generations,” the artists were often enfolded into the family shoot.
Instances of intimacy
“As photographers and filmmakers, a lot of time we are intimately involved,” noted Cummings. “When we are taking portraits, there is an intimacy there even just for a minute because we are privy to being part of the family’s life. We are documenting their life in some way.”
Cummings and Montanaro reflected on a moment they witnessed during a photo shoot of a Spanish-speaking family: “The interview was in Spanish. Jim was asking questions to the mother and daughter. The granddaughter was standing beside me, and she said, ‘I have a question,’ and it was this beautiful moment. ‘What was it like when you were a little girl grandma?’ and just to be kind of part of that is magical. I don’t know Spanish, but you didn’t even need to know the words to know it was a magical moment.”
The exhibit contains plaques inscribed with extracted quotes from family interviews and props from shoots, including a fairy headdress and a cherished family quilt.
Cummings reflected on the importance of documenting family life with photographs in the 21st century: “I think we’ve gotten to a point where everyone depends on their iPhones for pictures, and I think that we have forgotten family art. What I am afraid of as a photographer and a human is that people will take pictures of their kids on their iPhone, and by the way I am all for iPhones. I take a lot of pictures on my iPhone, but what I am afraid of is that people will forget.
“I am not saying that we should print lots of photos. What I’m saying is that we need to understand family art and treasure it.”
Family art: key to past
For Cummings, family art serves as an illuminating key to the past.
“The wedding photos of your great-grandmother, that might be the only photo they took in their life, but it is historical,” she reflected.
Cummings treasures a portrait that sat on her grandmother’s piano when she was a little girl growing up in Pennsylvania. She remembers the photograph as elegant and beautiful. One day she asked her grandmother “who that lady was in the picture?” The formal portrait done by Bachrach Photography in Philadelphia is of her grandmother as a young woman.
“I didn’t know what year she took it, but it is a beautiful portrait of her,” she said. “She was looking off in the photo, not looking directly at the camera. I would often wonder who she was looking at. I never met her when she was in her early 30s. It gave me a picture of who she was.”
Cummings emphasized the importance of being photographed: “People today don’t want to get into photographs and they say, ‘I’m too fat’ or ‘I’m old’ or ‘I’m not photogenic.’
“It is important that you take the pictures. I’m not saying it has to be professional pictures. I’m saying get in the picture.”
Shutterbug mom
She remembers growing up with a shutterbug mother who took enough family photos to fill multiple boxes in the attic.
“My mom was really into the photos,” she said. “Some of them are weird looking. In some of them, we have silly faces, but we have them.”
Montanaro, added, smiling: “The silly faces are part of the charm that tells part of the story. In my family, the silly photos tell the story more than the serious ones.”
“Generations” has received positive feedback from viewers who have identified with the exhibited photographs and film, Montanaro noted: “It has been nice to see some of the emotive reactions responses of people. They can connect with some of the images, and it brings them back to their family photos.”
Cummings added: “We had one woman looking around at all the pictures, and she said: ‘I just lost my mother-in-law,’ and she was very emotional about it, but it wasn’t a bad thing.
“Bring your kids to see this because it is a good thing. Even though you don’t know the people, you can understand the feeling in what people feel toward whoever is in the photo.”
“Generations” by Divine Beauty Photography runs through Saturday, July 30, at the Jefferson Cutter Gallery (beneath the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum). A closing reception is set for July 30 from 3 to 8 p.m.
This feature story by YourArlington freelancer Aileen Maroney was published Wednesday, July 13, 2016, and updated July 18.
