Colorado photographer displays her polyfamily self-portraits

WestWord

Elsewhere in graphic arts exhibits, this time in Denver...

A day in the life of an alternative relationship in Let's Get It Straight, at Ice Cube Gallery

By Tiffany Fitzgerald

Julie Puma had a month to put together her new show, Let's Get it Straight, and she diverted from painting, her usual medium, into snapshot aesthetic photography. The biggest challenge for Puma wasn't the medium, however. Rather, it was spotlighting her own personal life.

Let's Get it Straight offers a look into the ordinary lives of people in three unorthodox relationships — two homosexual partners, one transgender woman's marriage, and Puma's own polyamorous relationship. She... notes that she struggled with the idea that her relationship would be on display.

"I used to be really scared about people finding out about my relationship," she says. "But, if we're going to take a stand about marriage, then it's about the right for everyone to have a family the way they want to have a family. I went back and forth on whether to call the piece about me "Julie, Charlie, and John," or "Untitled." I chickened out at the last minute. That was kind of wussy."

..."I think we need to redefine what it means to be married," she says. "I see more and more couples, or families, who either split-up or cheat and lie. But for some reason, when people are honest about their relationships and still have wonderful family values, all the things Americans want out of a family, the general public has a hard time moving away from how we originally define marriage."

For more information, visit Puma's web page, or Ice Cube's web page. The show runs through April 21.

Read the whole article (April 12, 2012).

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