Cornell University Library Digital Collections
Honey Lee Cottrell self-portrait. "Take out." Image reflected in store window showing man scurrying past, not looking. For photo class assignment.
- Title:
- Honey Lee Cottrell self-portrait. "Take out." Image reflected in store window showing man scurrying past, not looking. For photo class assignment.
- Collection:
- Images from the Rare Book and Manuscript Collections
- Creator:
- Cottrell, Honey Lee
- Creation Date:
- 1974
- Site:
- San Francisco, California
- Location:
- San Francisco, California
- ID Number:
- RMC2015_0331
- Catalog Record:
- 8273318
- Collection Number:
- 7822
- File Name:
- RMC2015_0331.jpg
- Work Type:
- black-and-white photographs
- Subject:
- Butch and femme (Lesbian culture)
Lesbian culture
Lesbian erotica
Cottrell, Honey Lee
- Description:
- Cottrell's thoughts about this image:
"
Back in 1974, when I
was still meditating on how to make this quantum leap from waitress to
photographer with the added complication of having just been extricated from a
deeply dependent relationship with another woman, I was given a photo class
assignment to do a roll (36 exposures) of self-portraits. I was living in a
tiny studio apartment near the Greyhound Bus Station at 7th and Market Streets
in San Francisco. The transients on Market Street were my friends. The area was
my home. I took my pictures there.
The first picture
shows my shadow following a man with a wrinkled coat and a cardboard box. I
watched this street bum in amazement as he negotiated his way down Market
Street, totally unaware that there were other people on the street and everyone
else was agreeing with him by not noticing that he was there. This shadow
portrait seemed to me, then, to be an appropriate self-portrait. Now it seems
to be what it feels like (then and now) to be not noticed as a dyke; how we all
agree not to see me when I dress and act and say that I am a lesbian.
The second picture is
a much more explicit document of this Market Street reality: how my street
attitude and dress appear and how people don't look. I am aware of noticing
what is happening even if the man scurrying past is not. If I turned this photo
loose on the heterosexual world, would they remember the times that they
refused to recognize my sexual preference, or would it be an amusing view of
deviant behavior?
Not knowing the
answer to this question is one of the reasons I haven't shown it to anyone
except friends."
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/corinne/Cottrell.htm
- Cite As:
- Honey Lee Cottrell Papers, #7822. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- Honey Lee Cottrell papers
- Box:
- Unknown
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- Held by Artist (Creator), Publisher or Artist's (Creator's) Representatives.
