In 1938, the regional director of the Federal Art Project asked the group of artists and printers in the New York City Poster Division to design a calendar as a showpiece to give to members of Congress, but the idea backfired.
Read MoreOver the past couple months, I’ve been working on digitizing, restoring, and printing ten of Dorothea Lange’s negatives from the National Archives. The most exciting discovery during this project was coming across the original frame of Lange’s ‘I Am An American’ photograph.
Read MoreNearly seven months ago now, I published this photo essay of Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the U.S. Japanese imprisonment in 1942. I didn’t expect much to happen when I put it out in the world. My hope was that a few other people would find the images moving, and that these great photos that were lost for a period would find a new audience now in a time when it seemed particularly important to reflect on how we as a country have treated our own citizens and immigrants in the past.
Read MoreIn April, CODE Magazine in Amsterdam featured some of Dorothea Lange’s photographs in their issue about the history of denim. In preparation for the story, they interviewed me about my photo essay and fundraiser project, and I thought I would share their questions and my answers, since I talked a bit more about the inspiration for the project.
Read MoreThe military seized her photographs, quietly depositing them in the National Archives, where they remained mostly unseen and unpublished until 2006.
Read MoreDecember 7, 2016 marks the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. That same morning, FBI agents and Military Police began the systematic arrest and imprisonment of Japanese-American citizens—primarily community leaders, clergy, newspaper publishers and journalists—in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.
Read MoreImagine opening something utterly utilitarian—like a manual for a new kitchen appliance—and seeing an ornately-decorated, hand-drawn title page inviting you to open and explore the following pages—each of which were carefully drawn and printed, and then colored in by hand.
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