Resurrection and Wright

Lady Holding a Hat © Willie Anne Wright
Brugmansia blossoms face the ground rather than the sky, a commotion of silent bells. Shamans in South America use them to speak with the dead. In her own way, fine art photographer, Willie Anne Wright, does, too. Like any good conjuror, she's always open to new talismans. A few years ago, a friend gave her a potted Brugmansia.
In the series spawned by the flower, she went back to the beginnings of photography and created photograms. Placing cut blossoms and the images she wants to call home in full sun, she waits. The silent brugs trumpet. And soon enough, the phantoms come.

Profile of a Lady © Willie Anne Wright

The Eyes Have It

Ravia's Eyes photograph from Belly Dancers series
by VCU alumna, Anne C. Savedge




Certainly Ravia's eyes have it, several times over, in this image. But in most of Anne C. Savedge's Belly Dancers series, it's the body that counts. In shot after shot, among spinning fabrics of fuchsia, purple and gold, bodies soar like birds and whirl in ecstatic splendor, singing a language that we all know but only dance can speak.

Savedge expertly captures the light and movement of the women's costumes, veils, and limbs as they dance. Her images, like the Middle Eastern music that belly dancing seeks to embody and reveal, take us to a place where everyday sadness and pain are shimmied and swung into something unexpectedly shining and joyful.