A visual meditation in the vein of Southern Gothic literature, this project emerged through my collaboration with a group of women loosely calling themselves “Knit Club.” The photos are the result of creative play between me and the women in knit club; our process, a kind of alchemy. Texture and color and mood evoke a vital community, one that manages to exist outside the gaze or control of men.
I became intertwined with the group at the stage in life where motherhood seemed like a nebulous and foregone concept. I had spent most of my life running away from activities typically associated with “womanhood” or “femininity.” This project led me to ask why.
The facts of the Knit Club remain ambiguous, but as proposed by the book’s publisher, “it is a cross between a gang, a cult of mysteries, and a group of friends bound by secrets only they share.” Women, children, and mothers, shrouded in masks and mystery live a life on their own terms, their presence often felt outside the frame of the picture. The work leaves the viewer to sit with all the menace and foreboding that such female behavior historically suggests.
Published by TBW Books with an essay by Rebecca Bengal.
In the Press:
Kim Beil & Tarrah Krajnak in conversation
Aperture / Paris Photo Book Awards
Discussion with Susan Meiselas for Aperture/Paris Photo Shortlist