Disrupting Domesticity: Julie Blackmon's Irreverent Take on Small-town Family Life
By Dan Cowles
Julie Blackmon’s slightly skewed images of family life in the American Midwest—often populated by minimally supervised children in potentially hazardous yet comical situations—speak to the constant low-level anxiety familiar to pretty much any parent living in our modern times.
The overwhelm of being alive, being a mother, being pulled in a million different directions, and seeing danger everywhere informs Blackmon’s work. “You have all these little people that you’re responsible for, these lives to direct and manage,” she says. “You can just find yourself in some vortex of anxiety. Unless you do find the mythic or the beauty in it, and the humor in it…you might as well hang it up, because that's what it's all about.”
Click here to continue reading and watch a video about her process.