the sweet vernacular.

from the virtue&vice series (No. 1), from the lesson series (Evans, family)

from the lesson series (Evans, family)

I am so excited to be featuring connective artist Jane Waggonner Deschner today. I have had the privilege of meeting Jane on a few occasions while she was visiting NY from Montana. She is an extremely lovely woman who makes sensitive and perfectly crafted works of photographs and embroidery.

from the maxim series (row boat, Betty's boys)- included in connective thread.

Prior to connective thread, I had only seen images of Jane's work. So I was delighted to receive her work in the mail to see it first hand. Jane's craftsmanship is impeccable her stitching and collaging of the photographs is done with precision while her embroidered words are beautiful.

from the verso series (Me all alone)- my friend Ryan did a series similar to this and I love having a piece from it in my collection, something so lovely about the sentiment of the works.

Being someone who has a photographic background and who has worked with both alternative processes and printmaking techniques to explore family images and archives I felt an immediate affinity towards Jane's work.

from the garment series (t-shirt, Mother&sons)

Jane states:

...I’m aging. I want to moralize about accountability, acceptance, love, honesty, compassion, integrity, authenticity, gratitude and generosity. I appropriate and integrate the found photographs of strangers with the embroidered words of the famous. Embroidery binds snapshots together, inscribes a quote. Stitching by hand into these photos both destroys and mends. I puncture and suture, wound and heal, simultaneously. It is an intimate activity, meditative and, sometimes, physically painful because of the tedium of the activity and the osteoarthritis in my thumb joints.

from the fragment series (boy, girl, doll)

Poetically written she describes how she uses the vernacular photograph to talk about the deeper human experience. Often, in my opinion, on how one's youth affects them in their second half of life.

from the fragment series (me)

I have to say that I really love the fragment series, the way she breaks apart the image and zooms in on details and moments documented. Gorgeous.

To see more of Jane's work visit her Flickr page and please know that Jane is available to do commissioned works with your personal family photographs.

I will end this post with a quote Jane that has included in her statement- it is perfectly said.

The snapshot (is) the form of photography that is most defined by love.
~Nan Golden, I’ll be Your Mirror, 1996