Original Prints & Artwork

deanisidro

Handmade in Sag Harbor, New York.

When I was young, my mom went to cosmetology school. After graduating, she set up a chair and opened a little salon in our home near Santa Cruz. The idea of beauty, and the project of making people look pretty - as women were coming and going, in curlers and perms and blowouts - was a way of life as I was growing up.

One day in 1976, my mom came inside after lying in the sun all day, and said “Take a picture of my tan.” She handed me her little square Kodak point-and-shoot, and it was the first time I had ever held a camera. I remember the feel of it - the excitement of peering through the viewfinder, and having a framework to organize what I was seeing in a way that would last.

I concentrated on her bright yellow shorts, and her red blouse, and her golden hair, and her deep tan - I thought she was so pretty, like Farrah Fawcett. And I wanted the picture to be as beautiful as she looked to me.

Then I pressed the shutter.