Most of my photographic work in recent years has examined women’s lives.  I also photograph other subjects - my travels, details of nature – but I always come back to portraits of women.  I am disturbed by the ways in which women continue to be portrayed in American popular culture.  Just when I think progress is being made, I’ll be assaulted by another image of an emaciated scantily-clad young woman upside down in a garbage can, her lifeless feet advertising the latest fashion in shoewear.  I become angry, and I feel the need to create images of
authentic beautiful and intelligent women. 

When I first discussed this artistic project with a friend, she suggested I call it by the acronym SIWOT, Strong Independent Women of Taos.  That has been its working title since then.  Of course, the solar etchings and photographs in this series represent just a few of the hundreds of such women living
and working in the Taos area.

Technical notes: Solar etching is a printmaking process. A digital photographic image is made, either shot originally with a digital camera or scanned from film. Then a positive transparency of the image is printed on the computer. The transparency is sandwiched with a light-sensitive plate called a solarplate, and exposed to light. It is then developed with water, which washes out the unexposed areas. The plate is inked and run through a conventional printmaking press. I often combine the original photographic images with drawings, collage, colored inks, and chine colle papers.

Crusita Luhan
Jan, Corina, and Alysa Buzzuto