In The Gilded Closet

For years I have collected Cabinet Cards and Cartes de Visite dating from roughly 1865 to 1900, the American Gilded Age. I had always intended to use these images as the basis for a series of artworks. But it was the events of the past years which revealed the fragility of the progress made by the LGBTQ+ community that this project came into focus. “In The Gilded Closet — Reimagined Portraits of Americans” I examine gender, sexual identity and societal taboos in an age where being "out" was dangerous, imagining their hidden selves and identities. In a related project, an idiosyncratic visual history of America up to 1900, I use those images from my collection (including at least one from what was to become the 50 States plus the District of Columbia) as my lynch-pin. {https://issuu.com/forgottenamerica}. I took a deep dive into the back story of these images, the photographers, the cities and states, and events of the the time. While I learned much, the subjects themselves remained unknown and perhaps unknowable.