So, March was a blur…

Back in January - Gretchen Newsom, one of the most savvy and innovative political organizers around, hatched a grand plan. It centered on a photo series I had been working on for about 9 months. The portraits I had been making of women electricians in IBEW should be showcased in an exhibit for Women’s History Month.

And then we put the idea into overdrive. Expanded it to other trade unions.

Including the Iron Workers from Local 229… who also opened up their training facility (awesomely named “The University of Iron”) for a huge photo session.

Photos Courtesy Carol Kim.

By the time we were done - 26 more women were a part of the project… and five more unions were represented.

Photos on left courtesy Jennifer Wilson.

Photo on right courtesy Carol Kim.

Which meant it was time to develop film. A lot of it. The first four days of March were spent Developing/Agitating/Stopping/Fixing/Rinsing/Repeating.

What came out of that beautiful soup of chemicals was an exhibit.

One that I knew I could be proud of… as long as I could get it matted and framed in time.

Reinforcements were called in. We learned about hinging tape. We lined up mattes and images. We ran out of hinging tape. Chaos ensued. We learned about gummed tape vs self-adhesive. We swore off gummed and found more self-adhesive. Chaos was averted.

And then…