Desert Flowers & Crib Girls, (2011-)

Desert Flowers & Crib Girls is work in progress drawn from an ongoing, multi-faceted creative collaboration between singer/songwriter Johnette Napolitano of LA band, Concrete Blonde, and myself.

I first came across the portraits of the women, which are drawn from American historical archives, in two books on prostitution in the Wild West that Johnette had in her collection. Each archival historical image is paired with a cactus flower photo that I took in Joshua Tree National Park.

My trip  coincided with the blooming of spring wildflowers and desert cacti in Joshua Tree National Park. This is short lived and the display of colour is spectacular. Some flowers are only at their peak for an hour or two, some last a day, others flower overnight. In many ways, the cacti became a metaphor for the women, particularly the cacti in the spring when they bloom. In fact, these women were referred to as both Desert Flowers and Soiled Doves. One of the quotes in Joshua Tree National Park seemed appropriate for the lives of the women who I was reading about and the way they were linked to nature:

In the desert, survival is an art.

During the time we walked through the park, we came across some relics from the former gold mining times in the mid 1800s. There was the establishing of the American West and with it the arrival of women and the history of prostitution in the west, which is linked to the gold rush. This work is informed by a desire to bring images of these women to life; to research and name them, as well as to memorialize their lives.

Some of the photo composites were housed in a specially-made DIY dovecote which was exhibited in a group show, Is That It, as part of the Brighton Photo Fringe 2012. In the show, the dovecote was displayed with a torch to illuminate the images and with headphones for the audience to listen to the lyrics and rough mix of Johnette’s song, Crib Girl.

Follow this link to the Crib Girl video by Johnette, which was released in 2017.