Debbie Fleming Caffery
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Caffery’s first images, done in the early 70s, were in-focus portraits of subjects in rural settings that emphasized character through poses and expressions. The earliest photo in this show of 31 images, now on view at Catherine Edelman Gallery, Praying, 1976, shows a subject Caffery photographed often: Polly, an elderly African American woman. Here she stands in a field facing us, looking a bit downward and to the side, her hands raised beside her head. Her vivid features seem almost chiseled; the slightly tilted horizon line combined with her pose creates a dynamic composition. Her dramatically uplifted fingers and deflected gaze suggest the powerful inner intensity of a woman whose thoughts are elsewhere.
Raised in the southern Louisiana sugarcane country where she still lives, Caffery was educated in Catholic schools until college. Yet her images are less concerned with specific religious doctrines than with giving things a power and a presence that transcend the visible and tangible–a kind of spirit. Asked about religion, she recalls that some of the nuns were “great storytellers. I always loved the stories…their great emotion and spirit.” There were also other influences: Anne Wilkes Tucker has pointed out that in addition to the south’s traditional Christian denominations there were “Charismatics, palm readers…Louisiana voodoo.”
Religion, seen as a mixture of make-believe and magic, also animates other images. In Mexico, 1994 four children wearing Day of the Dead masks are shown at night standing in front of the Mexico City cathedral. The church is out of focus and brightly lit, almost white: in this time exposure, the kids and the cathedral are both a bit fuzzy. The architecture also echoes the figures: behind each child’s head is a tower or small protrusion in the church roof. It seems everything’s alive in this image that combines a religious festival and children’s playful dressing up. Caffery says that one thing she loves about Mexico is the way emotions and religion are always close to the surface. She remembers her childhood observances of All Souls’ Day as very sad, while in Mexico “they celebrate it…welcoming the spirits of people who died.”
