Jonathan Segal (Photo by Laurie Edison)

…suit what I'm looking for, but frequently I'm one or two people away from them. I just had an email from someone who said that he had a friend who he thought would be someone I'd be interested in for the book.

Crescent Blues: One of the things I thought was interesting about Women En Large was the enormous amount of diversity. Not only cultural and racial diversity, but the diversity extended to women who had what we would we normally consider disabilities of various sorts. This is astonishing at first, but then I found myself asking, "Well, why not?" Which I gather is the reaction you're looking for.

Laurie Edison: Well, that's part of showing as many different kinds of people as possible. And of course for Women En Large there was also size -- what does society consider fat; how it would start from what one would call mid-size and then would go up.

Crescent Blues: It could define 90 percent of the female population if you're rigorous about it.

Laurie Edison: I could do an entire book of women who defined themselves as fat and only include women who could practically model for the magazines. That's one of the major problems that we deal with, the obsession with extreme thinness.

Crescent Blues: Which is not a problem for men.

Laurie Edison: No.

Crescent Blues: Are there body images or taboos or similar things that emerge with men? One issue that is as profound for men as size is for women, or a host of issues -- in terms of them looking at their bodies and comparing to society's norms?

Laurie Edison: That's an interesting question. I'm still in the middle of this work, so I don't have a complete answer. Men do express concern over issues of fat and size, but these concerns are not as important to men as they are to women. And I think if I'd been taking these pictures twenty years ago that would have been a lot more true. But the whole commoditization of beauty that women have been dealing with for so long is certainly starting to affect men. All you have to do is look at television advertising to see that.

I think men's issues are more diverse. What men are concerned with -- profoundly -- is fitting into this very small box which we call masculinity. Most men try very hard and have a very hard time trying to fit as much of themselves into this box. Because if they don't, the world says that they're weak, or they're women, or they're queer. I don't think that this is true of the individual men I photographed as I was photographing them. And when I think about it, most of the fat women I photographed were not grappling with issues of size when I photographed them, so I guess it's not that dissimilar.

At any rate, what I'm really trying to do in my work is show what men look like out of the box. Because most men are not like that little box, however much they feel forced to squeeze their public personas into it. Out of the box, masculinity becomes much broader, much more complicated, much more diverse. And much more relaxed.

Crescent Blues: Do you find people have more problems viewing male nudes than female nudes?

Edna Rivera (Photo by Laurie Edison)

Laurie Edison: No. I find it's about the same. Because the issue of fat is one of the ultimate taboos. You're still allowed to make jokes about it, people are still allowed to ridicule fat people in a way that almost nothing else can be ridiculed. And people have really been trained, deeply trained by a multi-billion dollar medical industry, a multi-billion dollar diet industry, and a multi-billion dollar beauty industry, to be really repulsed by fat.

I think people are equally uncomfortable or comfortable, for that matter, with the male nudes, because we're not supposed to see men out of the box. But by the same token, Women En Large does makes people who really look at the pictures say, "Oh. She does look beautiful." And that can really change how people see. And I'm getting very much the same reaction when I show the male nude work. It's kind of, "Yeah, I know men who look like that." Or men say, "Yes, this is what I look like, and it feels so good to see people like me." And meanwhile the work is still getting complicated negative reactions, because all of this is new, and evolving.

Crescent Blues: Do you get negative reactions sometimes?

Laurie Edison: You mean, do I know there are negative reactions to the work? Sure.

Crescent Blues: How do you find out about it?

Laurie Edison: My experience is that when most people see either the fat nudes or the male nudes, and have time to see them either in an exhibition or a book or a slide show, the predominant reaction is positive. Obviously, some people say negative things. Or sometimes I'll get an unpleasant email. But the portraits I do are designed to catch an essential sense of who the people I'm photographing are, and that has a very different effect on people than conventional nudes.

Crescent Blues: That are done for erotic reasons.

Laurie Edison: Yes. I think one of the differences is that people expect women to be willing to pose in the nude. The idea of a woman posing in the nude, even a woman who has never modeled before, may be surprising to people, or very surprising if it's a fat woman. But the idea that average men are willing to take off their clothes and be photographed is much, much more surprising to people. There is a much more persistent assumption that these must be professional models, some special category of men, because the taboo is so great.

Crescent Blues: Do you think that people, in a sense, self-select and just turn their heads when they pass the hall where you're giving the exhibition or when they see the book, if they can't handle this.

Guy Thomas (Photo by Laurie Edison)

Laurie Edison: Yes, I do. I also think that reviews clearly self-select. Because Women En Large has gotten about sixty reviews -- and I'm not talking about short paragraphs but full-length articles, literally worldwide. And something like 57 of them were incredibly positive. And of the other three, one was trying real hard to like it and just couldn't manage it. And we got totally blasted by The Sun, one of the major tabloid presses in England. This was in conjunction with an exhibition which included my work, and they also ran one of the photographs with this review that totally trashed my work, the exhibition and everything about it. People saw the photograph and the exhibition was packed.

If you say "beautiful fat woman," unless you can see a photograph, it sounds like a contradiction in terms. And The Sun ran one of my photographs large, so an awful lot of people clearly looked at the photograph, and ignored the review, and came to the exhibition.

When I say that we get relatively little negative reaction, and I do think it is self-selecting.

Crescent Blues: People who aren't ready to look at this --

Laurie Edison: Don't want to talk about it. I've had the experience of talking, for example, with two people on the same newspaper, and one person just isn't interested in talking with me at all. And the next person I reach is incredibly interested in the work and wants to know about it. What's not self-selecting, though is when people see the photographs.

Crescent Blues: Even if they come with a bit of an attitude.

Laurie Edison: I think they do. I've stood in galleries or in bookstores and literally watched people change their minds. I've seen people come into a Women En Large exhibition and start giggling at the first pictures and they're clearly uncomfortable. Actually I'm thinking of one in San Antonio, Texas, which is quite a conservative place. I just watched the women walk around -- they didn't know I was the artist -- and about halfway through they'd start saying, "I know somebody who looks like her." And by time they were finished they were talking about how good the women looked. That's really what the work is about.

Also, when we would do bookstore slide shows -- and this happened a lot -- someone would get up out of the audience and say, "You know, the first time I saw that book, I couldn't even open it. I just couldn't. I walked away. And then I came back and I kind of opened it a little bit and looked at a few of the pictures. And decided" -- and this was very often fat women -- "and decided, you know, these women didn't look too bad."

And then she would come back the third time to the slide show and not only realize that the women in the book looked good but realize that she looked good. And we heard this story over and over again. And it's one of the reasons it's so important to make a book -- because you can do that with a book. You can come back to it, you can see it in a friend's house -- you can see it in lots of therapists' offices.

Crescent Blues: Really? Are therapists using it as a tool?

Laurie Edison: Yes, a lot of therapists and professors are using it, as well as one of the major institutes in human sexuality in Minneapolis. They use slides from Women En Large, among other things, for outreach to women who are HIV positive, because it is positive body image stuff. It's also being used in various classes in human sexuality just as a way to make people feel comfortable about how people look. I speak at colleges a fair amount, at their request. We're in a lot of university libraries and a lot of public libraries. That's something we worked really hard at.

Joe Ford (Photo by Laurie Edison)

And the book has crossed over very well into the African American community, where it has been very well reviewed. That was also very important to us. We wanted [Women En Large] to get out into as many communities as possible.

Crescent Blues: I get the distinct feeling that this isn't the first time you've put your art into the service of social change.

Laurie Edison: Actually, Women En Large was the first time. And I should be very clear about the fact that when I take the pictures, the first thing I'm doing is the art. And then the social change plays into how the art gets used. But when I'm photographing someone, it's really a combination of the aesthetics of the composition and getting a sense of who they are. I don't think about social change when I'm photographing people at all.

Crescent Blues: But it certainly emerges from the collected body of the work.

Laurie Edison: Also the fact that for both books, text is very important. The text gives framing or context to the work. Otherwise someone could simply say, "These are marvelous pictures and she's a great photographer," and dismiss the politics. So it's very important that the text be there as well, to showcase the issues.

Crescent Blues: Perhaps the book not only gave you the gift of a new art, then, but a way of combining threads in your life.

Laurie Edison: I think that's true. Women En Large emerged from social change work, which I had done before. But having my art and my social change work weave themselves together was absolutely a new thing for me. And one of the really good things about this kind of work is that when you do an interview or you get pictures in a magazine or you make any publicity effort- -- every time you do that you're doing important work.

If I concentrated on landscapes, for example, I'd have to spend at least as much energy on interviews and TV and slide shows and the rest of that, but those wouldn't pay me back. This way, most of my publicity work feels very good. Because, obviously, it's about me, but it's also about the work and it's about me because I do the work. For example, traditionally magazines and newspapers want to run a picture of the artist, and I always have them run one of my photographs instead. What I look like isn't very interesting, but people seeing what the nudes look like is what's going to make them come to the gallery or the event.

Crescent Blues: So how much longer are you going to be working on the Familiar Men project before the book emerges, or is that indefinite?

Laurie Edison: There's going to be a major exhibition of Familiar Men in Japan in November, and Debbie's and my goal (she's collaborating with me on the text for this book) is to have it either finished or very close to finished by then. And that is looking good at the moment. The text is going to include small photographs, and be much more integrated with the art than the text was for Women En Large. We'd like to have it almost finished, and I hope the photographs will be finished as well. That will make it about five years; it will end up taking about as long as Women En Large.

Crescent Blues: And then do you have another project in mind, or are you waiting for one to emerge?

Laurie Edison: I have another project in mind that I'm not ready to talk about. But once this is finished, there's going to be the next step, which is getting it seriously out into the world. And after that I'm going to take a long vacation.

Crescent Blues: Getting the book done is only the first step. Then you have to go out and promote it.

Laurie Edison: As I said, one of the really good things about the social change aspect of the work is going out and promoting it. Promotion is hard work, and if I could wave a magic wand and stay home in my darkroom, I certainly would. But at least because it's social change work, mostly the promotion feels really good to do. And also I get a whole different level of feedback on the work. One of the really good things about the kind of work I do is I'm not doing it alone in the corner. I'm very much involved with people and with community.

Crescent Blues: That's one aspect that I found very fascinating. You're not just going and taking a bunch of photos and then putting them there. The exhibitions, the public reaction to the work is very much shaping the work even as you do it.

Laurie Edison: And when I'm photographing people, in many ways it really is very collaborative. I'm not only shooting people in their homes, I'm also shooting people in ways that they feel comfortable. I don't pose people. Well, I pose people in the sense that I'll say "Move your head three inches or put your hand over here." But I make it very clear when I'm working with people that I only want them to sit or stand in ways that are natural and comfortable to them. I would not be getting the kind of portraits I got if people weren't really very comfortable and relaxed. Because what I want is what's natural for that person. And so that part of it is also collaborative and then, as you said, I go out and getting reactions to the work and hear how people feel. That's very important.

Crescent Blues: In addition to being a collaboration between you and Debbie, you could call it a multi-part collaboration between you, Debbie and the community that you are working in.

Laurie Edison: Yes; and actually it's "communities," plural. One important thing is that the work is diverse and it really goes to a lot of different communities. It's one of the things that does make Familiar Men different. The fat activist community was there for Women En Large to begin in and be supported in, while the male nude work, Familiar Men, really cuts across a lot of very different communities, without having one "home community" to focus on. So getting reactions and hearing what people think is more complicated. But very rewarding.

Crescent Blues: Is photography something you can ever imagine yourself making a living at, or is your jewelry going to continue to do that for a while?

Laurie Edison - Continued