Major Arcana Witches in America Art Exhibit New York

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My brand of witchcraft is my own: a wild eclectic brew of hoodoo (blackness Native American folk spirituality) and shamanism. I am a solitary witch and the wood are my church. I pray in nature and employ the elements to heighten my rituals and ceremonies. I utilise tools such as drums, rattles, animal bones, feathers, crystals, and sigils, and I channel fauna spirits, spirit guides, and ancestors. I ray wit my total body and spirit to enter into trance states. – Shine Blackhawk

Possibly afterwards the year we've just experienced, considering witchcraft is not such a strange idea. Artist Frances F. Denny tossed the poisonous substance apple out the car window every bit she traveled the U.S. photographing and interviewing a various group of people who identify as witches. Later on a major exhibition at Clampart in New York, she has released the monograph Major Arcana, published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, The book "explores the various means the notion of witch-ness belongs to those who claim information technology, representing the witch as a singularly self-sought identity that both empowers and politicizes its bearer."

Major Arcana is an exploration of contemporary witchery told through hitting photographs and brusque, thought-provoking essays in the subjects' own words, along with a foreword by the "Terry Gross of witches," Pam Grossman, and a Q&A with curator Horace D. Ballard. From occultists and Neo-pagans, to herbalists and Wiccan High Priestesses, Denny's portraits capture the multifaceted faces of modernistic witchcraft and claiming our assumptions about who and what a witch really is. The volume can be purchased on Amazon and on Bookshop. She has an upcoming exhibition: "Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America," at The Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Embankment, FLA, curated by Erin Gordon (January 19th-April 16th, 2021).

Frances F. Denny is an artist and photographer whose work investigates female person identities. Her piece of work is represented by ClampArt in New York City. Frances' kickoff monograph, Let Virtue Be Your Guide, was published in 2016 by Radius Books. Her 2d book, Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America, was released in Nov 2020 by Andrews McMeel Publishing. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts 2016 Fellowship in Photography, and has won numerous awards, including PDN's 30, LensCulture Emerging Talent, Magenta Flash Forrad, and Disquisitional Mass. She received an MFA from Rhode Island Schoolhouse of Pattern. Frances lives in New York where she balances her fine art practice and piece of work as an editorial and commercial photographer. She shoots regularly for The New York Times and New Yorker. IG @francesfdenny

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Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America book encompass ©Frances F. Denny

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Spread from Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America past Frances F. Denny

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Spread from Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America by Frances F. Denny

Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America

Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America is a drove of portraits and texts written past individuals from across the Us who identify as witches.

Equally early on as 15th century Europe, people condemned as witches faced an disturbing fate. Those unfortunate enough to exist accused of witchcraft were idea to be centrolineal with the devil, and were demonized, tortured, and in many cases put to death based on the scantest of evidence. Yet despite its sorry history, recent decades have seen a reclaiming of the word "witch." In the mid-20th century, emerging heathen communities in the United states and Europe began embracing the term, and since then, "witch" has been adopted past a diverse grouping of people, from practicing Wiccans to feminist activitsts. Major Arcana explores the various means the notion of witch-ness belongs to those who claim it, representing the witch as a singularly cocky-sought identity that both empowers and politicizes its bearer.

Each person photographed for Major Arcana (including genderfluid and trans individuals) pursues a class of witchcraft, whether aligned with a religion (like Wicca, Santeria, or Voudou) or a self-defined practice. No two individuals inhabit the term "witch" in quite the same way, merely many consider themselves infidel, and engage in a diversity of traditions, including: mysticism, engagement with the occult, politically-oriented activism, polytheism, ritualized "spell-work," and constitute-based healing. Among those included in the serial are self-proclaimed green witches, white witches, kitchen witches, hedge witches, sex activity witches, and catholic witches. "Witch" is a mutable term, belonging to and embodying a wide spectrum of people. Ultimately, Major Arcana aims to fully reflect that spectrum, re-framing the witch as a feminist archetype too as the contemporary embodiment of a defiant, unsanctioned femininity. – Frances F. Denny

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