Best Friends

JESSICA AND RENA, Santa Barbara, CA, 1976
Black and white photograph created with 120 film, 20” x 20”, Artist’s Collection

Jessica is Sheridan’s daughter. Jessica and her best friend, Rena, two teenage California girls, sit among the pots in Sheridan’s pottery studio. Like the unfinished pots, they are in transition. They both appear strong and self-confident, focusing their gaze directly on the camera. I see their confidence and imagine that they’ll grow up to be formidable women. Then I imagine myself as a teenager, sitting among the unfinished piece goods in my father’s men’s clothing business in lower Manhattan. I’m without a best friend, and my gaze is unfocused. I can’t wait to grow up. And I know that I will not be like my father.

JESSICA, New York City, 2024
Digital color print, 20” x 20”,
Artist’s Collection

Jessica is in her apartment. Her friend, Rena, lives far away, but she cozies up with her dog. She holds the frowning mask to her face, and mimics the posture from the previous image. Behind her is a print of a reel of film, signaling her new career as a screenwriter. Jessica, like her father, is a writer who tells stories set in Southern California. Her first screenplay is in production as a feature film. The mask suggests a sadness, almost a weariness. And yet, no longer an unfinished clay pot, she’s excited about the trajectory of her life. As I see Jessica in mask, I’m aware of being at another stage of life, retired from formal teaching and writing yet still, like Jessica, excited to work on a new creative project.