all images: Sherry Wiggins and Luís Branco, 2021

I have been home for a little over a week now—settling in and beginning to look at the many images I made in Portugal at the OBRAS Artist Residencies with my collaborator, photographer Luís Branco. It was the best residency yet at OBRAS Portugal, this was my seventh residency at OBRAS Portugal (lucky 7) and I have been collaborating with Luís in Portugal and in the Netherlands since 2015. I arrived at Herdade da Marmeleira (the site of OBRAS Portugal) and I was greeted by my dear friends Carolien and Ludger, the founders of Foundation OBRAS and my hosts and major supporters of Luís and my work.

My intent was to shoot (with Luís) my embodiments and reinterpretations of the heroines Eve and of Salome with some reference to their historic representations in painting and literature. The characters / heroines I am choosing are all based on the ultimate inspiration for this project Claude Cahun— both their 1925 text Heroines as well as Cahun’s more theatrical self- portraits and performative images. There are 15 heroines in Cahun’s text (Eve, Judith, Penelope, Helen, Sappho, The Virgin Mary, Cinderella, Marguerite, Salome, Beauty, THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess (whom I have already represented in THE UNKNOWN HEROINE book and exhibition), Sophie, Salamacis, and THE ANDROGYNE. Of course there is tongue and cheek involved with Cahun’s re-presentations of these heroines, and also my own – after all I am a 66 year old feminist artist embodying these fabled women and Cahun was a radical feminist, gender fluid, artist in the early 20^th century rewriting the allegories and stories of their lives.

I was a little intimidated at the beginning, embodying these illustrious heroines seemed a daunting task. Luís and I began shooting Eve / the Serpent in the beautiful studio  at OBRAS  under more controlled conditions. This way I could slowly take on this “original woman,” mother of us all, and apparently the reason we are not all still in paradise.  Working in the studio situation I began to get my dangerous woman Eve / Serpent ju ju going and Luis captured some great images. Here are a few:

There are lots of representations of Eve but this watercolor by William Blake “The Temptation of Eve” (created for Milton’s Paradise Lost) spoke to me. I love the organic quality of the tree and the fruit, the serpent wrapping around Eve’s body, and Adam seemingly unaware of the circumstances. I also like the conflation of Eve and the Serpent, they are one body. I am a Buddhist and not a biblical scholar, but I do sincerely question this idea that “they” (Eve and the Serpent) are responsible for the expulsion from Paradise. I had found this super cool holographic snake fabric and special gloves (during my preparations in the US) and I brought this new costume to use for this embodiment.

Then we started shooting Eve / Serpent Woman by the Marmeleira tree in the courtyard at OBRAS. As I have written before, I chose the Marmeleira tree at OBRAS because it is so beautiful and also because there is some research and speculation about the original “forbidden fruit” in Paradise. If our biblical paradise was located on this earth, it was most likely in some more southern habitat. Apples are a more northern fruit. Some say that the Marmelo fruit / the Quince fruit could have been the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The fig, the persimmon, the pomegranate, are also possible suspects. We did our first shoot with the Marmeleira tree at dusk. Here are a few of those images:

Luis came back a week later and we did two more photo shoots (one in the morning and one in the evening) with the Marmeleira tree, this time with lights. Here are a few images from these last two photoshoots.

Cydney Payton has been helping me go through the many images of Eve and the Marmeleira tree. I am really excited about this new heroine of mine. I have many other images to sort through including my Salome embodiments. Lots of really good work! Other friends have been helping me sort the images, thank you! I am also sure that this project will go on with many more of Claude Cahun and my heroines. Va va voom!!

My friend Karla Dakin found this excellent article which confirms my belief in the marmelo / quince – It wasn’t an apple:

https://wsimag.com/food-and-wine/63211-it-wasnt-an-apple