Cara Lee Wade

Cara Lee Wade’s photographs are stitched from the fabric of matriarchal memory through objects once held, places once known, and stories told. Through self-portraiture and the act of performance, she becomes both a witness and a vessel for the women who came before her, weaving familial artifacts, not as fixed truths, but as living, breathing echoes, where what is absorbed, altered, or lost is made visible again. What began in mourning has become ritual. A story passed at the supper table, or a dusty teacup found in an antique store might spark a new image. Loss has ignited in Wade a commitment to absorb, preserve, and gather what remains, the stories, pieces, and places holding them close before they, too, disappear. Photographs are made with a 1947 4x5 Graflex and printed in small archival editions, each a tactile response to the fragility of remembrance.

Cara Lee Wade’s photographs are stitched from the fabric of matriarchal memory through objects once held, places once known, and stories told. Through self-portraiture and the act of performance, she becomes both a witness and a vessel for the women who came before her, weaving familial artifacts, not as fixed truths, but as living, breathing echoes, where what is absorbed, altered, or lost is made visible again. What began in mourning has become ritual. A story passed at the supper table, or a dusty teacup found in an antique store might spark a new image. Loss has ignited in Wade a commitment to absorb, preserve, and gather what remains, the stories, pieces, and places holding them close before they, too, disappear. Photographs are made with a 1947 4x5 Graflex and printed in small archival editions, each a tactile response to the fragility of remembrance.

Cara Lee Wade’s photographs are stitched from the fabric of matriarchal memory through objects once held, places once known, and stories told. Through self-portraiture and the act of performance, she becomes both a witness and a vessel for the women who came before her, weaving familial artifacts, not as fixed truths, but as living, breathing echoes, where what is absorbed, altered, or lost is made visible again. What began in mourning has become ritual. A story passed at the supper table, or a dusty teacup found in an antique store might spark a new image. Loss has ignited in Wade a commitment to absorb, preserve, and gather what remains, the stories, pieces, and places holding them close before they, too, disappear. Photographs are made with a 1947 4x5 Graflex and printed in small archival editions, each a tactile response to the fragility of remembrance.

Wild plants choose the space in which they reside; they have memory, and they learn while domesticated plants grow and thrive based on the care and attention they receive. Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer quantifies plants as “animated, living beings and as living beings they breathe, dance and preen”. The physical and mental practice is both scientific and poetic, an act of listening and reciprocity. Wade gathers plant materials and pigments with intention, allowing them to guide the work. The quest is to evoke a sense of place, not just as location, but as an ongoing symbiotic relationship. Lumen prints are a cameraless photographic process involving old, often expired, black and white photographic paper and, in this work, organic materials, such as flowers, plants, and seaweed alongside household organic substances, examples include salt and tea, exposed in Sunlight for hours and even days. The Sun reacts with and infiltrates the organic materials to produce image registration and colors in the black and white paper. The original images, like the experiences, are temporary; continued exposure to the sun will result in the blackening or ‘burning’ of the paper. In Wade’s process, the images are exposed, scanned immediately, enlarged, and printed archivally on aluminum.

Wild plants choose the space in which they reside; they have memory, and they learn while domesticated plants grow and thrive based on the care and attention they receive. Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer quantifies plants as “animated, living beings and as living beings they breathe, dance and preen”. The physical and mental practice is both scientific and poetic, an act of listening and reciprocity. Wade gathers plant materials and pigments with intention, allowing them to guide the work. The quest is to evoke a sense of place, not just as location, but as an ongoing symbiotic relationship. Lumen prints are a cameraless photographic process involving old, often expired, black and white photographic paper and, in this work, organic materials, such as flowers, plants, and seaweed alongside household organic substances, examples include salt and tea, exposed in Sunlight for hours and even days. The Sun reacts with and infiltrates the organic materials to produce image registration and colors in the black and white paper. The original images, like the experiences, are temporary; continued exposure to the sun will result in the blackening or ‘burning’ of the paper. In Wade’s process, the images are exposed, scanned immediately, enlarged, and printed archivally on aluminum.

Wild plants choose the space in which they reside; they have memory, and they learn while domesticated plants grow and thrive based on the care and attention they receive. Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer quantifies plants as “animated, living beings and as living beings they breathe, dance and preen”. The physical and mental practice is both scientific and poetic, an act of listening and reciprocity. Wade gathers plant materials and pigments with intention, allowing them to guide the work. The quest is to evoke a sense of place, not just as location, but as an ongoing symbiotic relationship. Lumen prints are a cameraless photographic process involving old, often expired, black and white photographic paper and, in this work, organic materials, such as flowers, plants, and seaweed alongside household organic substances, examples include salt and tea, exposed in Sunlight for hours and even days. The Sun reacts with and infiltrates the organic materials to produce image registration and colors in the black and white paper. The original images, like the experiences, are temporary; continued exposure to the sun will result in the blackening or ‘burning’ of the paper. In Wade’s process, the images are exposed, scanned immediately, enlarged, and printed archivally on aluminum.