left column: three closeups (each with a different crop) of a woman with brown skin lighting a cigarette. right column: a poem, "Blessings from Vinacocha"

a black woman wearing a skimpy light blue satin dress that's revealing a sliver of her nipple sits on a bench against a dirty wall, holding a cigarette in one hand and applying lip gloss with the other, her head tilted back and eyes closed

grid of 9 photos, some vertically inverted, create interesting shapes of a black woman's upper body

Click here for accessible text from first image

It always comes back To the
secrets That we keep from
Ourselves Yet that are often
Painted so heavily On our faces.

Lacquered thick And concealed,
powdered And set with feigned
innocence ~ Veiled and
veneered To protect our raw
truth…

We lack the strength
To be ourselves fully
Someone might
Say about us…

But perhaps,
It is that we admit
That our weakness
Is really that –
A weakness…

And it’s alright
Not to be strong
All the time.

 

When Connie and I met back in 2018, we had no idea what would come of our artistic partnership. Both on the precipice of evolution, both tapping into our endless well of feminine power – we would surprise ourselves with just how far we pushed the bounds of self-expression.

Self-expression is self-discovery. Connie does it with portraits, I do it with poems. Words shift and flow with every click and whirr.

The trajectories of who we are – that’s the ethos of our art.

We explore the sensual sides of femininity – we draw from the waters of cosmic desire; we’ve earned our right to toot our own horns – instead, though, we blow.

“Blessings from Viracocha” is the feminine, spiritual reflection of the divine moment when a photographer and poet converge at the perfect time.