This body of work is an on going project about the love of my life, Libby. It's a portrait of her through my queer tomboy gaze and it's an exploration in making pictures about her hybrid illegibility. The title of this picture comes from a bell hooks quote the longer version of which reads: “embrace a love ethic that allows us to govern and inform the way we think and act.” These words not only reflects the sentiment of this body of work, but the text itself is tattooed around Libby’s waist and appears partially in this photograph. The images and text Libby has chosen to tattoo on her body are significant to this project in that they are an enactments making more inteligable her often-unseen Mexican heritage as well as her Lesbian Femme identity.
Libby and I make pictures that explore how she presents herself, her daily struggle to be seen for who she is, a Femme Mexican. These pictures are also about the way I look at her, how I feel toward her and my struggle to make images that both reveal her identity and protect her. Collapsing the way I look at her and the way she performs herself this body of work positions the viewer as my surrogate and invites you to see with my gaze. Libby and I invite you to look in a new way and to see with a love ethic.
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