clementine baptism
In a collaborative project with Athens based photographer Cassie Wright, Shae posed as the first of many queer folks documented in this photoshoot series, aimed at expressing both the model and the photographers identities and ties to queerness. Shae styled the shoot, from content to attire, and the brilliant Cassie brought her vision to life.
Her artist statement is as follows: As a queer girl out of a southern baptist deep south, it took a while to work out sexuality, religion, and its intersection. After years of praying it away followed by periods of loud boasting, I think I have finally settled on a set jaw certainty. In a poem by Alesia Di Cesare, she writes that “there are boxes of clementines in the kitchen, and the thing is that I love you again”. Something about this imagery pulls deep at feelings that both old hymns and sapphic love letters give me. What better way to claim that identity than with a citrus baptism.
