Frances F. Denny | Artist and Photographer | Living outside the status quo

This week, host Eva Hartling continues the witch series with a very special guest. This episode features Artist and Photographer Frances F Denny. Frances' work investigates female identities. Her recently published book is titled “Major Arcana: Portraits of Witches in America,” which documents a diverse group of people who identify as witches. This book is an exploration of contemporary witchery told through striking photographs and short, inspiring texts written by the subjects themselves. Her work from this book is also on display at “The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming,” an exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum,

Frances herself is a descendant of one of the Salem trial judges, and of Mary Bliss Parsons, accused of witchcraft in 1674 and acquitted by a court in Boston. In this conversation, the duo explore what it means to be a witch and to practice witchcraft - in yesteryears, as well as today, in 2021. The two also explore what makes the witch such a unique female archetype.

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Full Episode Transcript

Eva Hartling: Frances, it's such a pleasure having you on The Brand is Female today for a very special episode, I'm excited to speak with you.

Frances F. Denny: Thanks Eva. I'm thrilled to be.

Eva Hartling: I want to start by asking you, and of course, we're going to be talking about witches today, but first I want to go back in time and hear about your journey and maybe start by asking you growing up, what did you think you would be doing later in life?

And did you already have a kind of an inclination that you might be doing something connected to the arts or to photography?

Frances F. Denny: Not necessarily, I was never one of those people growing up who always. Knew what their destiny would be or what they wanted to do when they grew up. When I graduated from college, I went to work in a sort of blue chip art gallery in the, in Chelsea, in this neighborhood in New York.

And thinking that I would want to work in the art world in some capacity, but not really knowing how I wanted to do that. I was not so happy at that gallery and it didn't last very long, but it did help me realize that this hobby I had since high school, photography was something I was actually pretty serious about.

And. And so then I set my course from there. I assisted other photographers. I took more classes to fill in gaps in my knowledge. And then after about five years, I went to graduate school and earned my MFA in photography. And so that's how my trajectory went, but no, I was not really one of those people who has always known that they wanted to be an artist.

Eva Hartling: Interesting. And when you started working how did it feel to be a woman in the world of photography? And I'm curious to know if you ever experienced gender bias, specifically around your career. How did your, how did being a woman basically kinda shape or contribute to your experience as a photographer who was just

Frances F. Denny: starting out?

There are so many different kinds of photography, right? You have art photography, you have photo journalism, you have wedding photography, food photography. So it's such a, it is quite a diverse kind of landscape. And in my sort of small sector of, for lack of a better sort of term like fine art photography.

I wouldn't say there was necessarily a gender bias built in, other than that, in the art world at large, there's definitely, a bias and you can see that with, how many women are getting collected by major institutions or exhibited in museum shows so that, if that's the kind of metric that were going by then.

Of course, yes, absolutely. There's bias, I did absolutely experience it and still do on a sort of smaller scale kind of microaggression, where in school I would have people who I was like renting dark room equipment from who. Would ask me if I knew how to use that piece of equipment, I remember renting I don't even remember what it was, some gadget.

And the guy running they called it a digital cage, it was like, oh, are you sure? You don't need a tutorial on that before you take it out. That's a really expensive lens or whatever it was. And I just remember, okay, my classmates or my male classmates are not really getting that level of questioning when they take out their equipment.

But it's also happened to me on shoots, photograph, I do a lot of portraiture and, photographing someone on the street and a man, typically it is a man comes up to me and Get in the midst of the shoot and either start interacting with my subject or I've had people tell me that they own the camera that I'm working with.

They'll say, oh, I have, that camera, and it's okay, congratulations. A lot of people have this camera. And thanks for interrupting me. Meanwhile, so yeah.

Eva Hartling: Yeah, I well that's yeah. I can't say I'm surprised, but that's, it's always fascinating to hear. And of course there's the question of the value of women's arts as compared to men's art right.

And the premium that's placed on art created by men and somehow women's art is always undervalued and that there still continues to be a huge gap today. I'd like to talk about your first book and I'd love to know about what, first of all, what got you inspired to to even work on a book and choose to explore and hear a little bit more about the the inspiration for that book ended, it's, I think the common theme between your two books has to do with women and clearly.

You have an interest and an interest in exploring all things fit feminine. So I'd love to hear about let virtue be your guide, which was published in 2015. And then I'm curious to see how that led you to your second book. And then we can get into our topic

Frances F. Denny: of witches. Absolutely. So just to take a step back, I would say, as an artist, you're absolutely right.

I'm thinking about from project to project, a similar kind of theme, right? I'm thinking about the ways that women are taught to be women, Simone de Beauvoir. Famously wrote right. That one is not born, but becomes a woman. So I'm interested in looking at that sort of essential idea that there is something learned about how to be feminine, to be Female, to be a woman.

So each of my projects looks at that central preoccupation. From a different standpoint. And my first book, let virtue be your guide took on the it from a more personal standpoint. So through the lens of the family, my family, I come from a new England family. I grew up outside of Boston and in this series of images, which are documentary in nature, they're portraits and interiors, and found still lives.

I'm really looking at the way that many of my Female relatives embody femininity and the kind of particular traditional buttoned up version of womanhood they embody. And I think doing that project was a way for me to put my finger on that version of femininity for myself and to perhaps gain a little bit of sort of critical distance from it.

So yeah, that's really where we're let virtue be your guide came from. And I stole my title from, well, I adapted it from the title of an exhibition in, I believe it was 1982 of colonial. Brightree samplers. So for those of you who don't know these embroidery samplers were these didactic learning tools that young girls and women would embroider with the ABCs with sort of pictorial depictions of domestic scenes, like homes and there were always like flower, very flowery, but there were also be like pieces of scripture and on one.

it said, let virtue be a guide unto thee. So I got really hooked on this idea of virtue. What is Female virtue? What does that mean? And how is that word changed over time?

Eva Hartling: Would you be able to share something you learned or discovered through working on that first book or, around the concept of femininity and maybe even how it possibly altered your view of the concept and, generally.

Frances F. Denny: I think that it helped me, like I said, pinned down the version of femininity that I come from. So when we grow up in a certain world, it's the air we breathe in. It's the water we're drinking. It seems normal, but it wasn't until I left Boston and went to New York for school and to live that I realized that version was really specific.

And And I wouldn't go so far as to say unique because there's something deeply traditional and American about, about that kind of version of womanhood, but it felt like one that I needed to get my arms around and try and see through my camera with a greater degree of maybe objectivity.

Eva Hartling: That's so interesting. And then of course, I want to ask about your second book and cruise to know if there was and I believe it was inspired or it started with work. That was part of an exhibition that you put together first. So there, there was work before there was a book project.

So I'd love to know about what put you on the path to witches.

Frances F. Denny: So actually it started with my first book. When I was looking at this culture that I come from in new England. I did a pretty deep dive into looking at my family tree. And there is this document that my father compiled a long time ago that details my family ancestry.

Quite aggressively. And I made the discovery that my 10th grade grandfather was a central judge in the Salem witch trials and coincidentally, my eighth grade grandmother was accused of witchcraft. No, she wasn't in Salem, but it was about 20 years prior to the Salem trials in north Hampton, Mass.

But that coincidence really struck me at the time as as a resonant one and one that I couldn't quite reconcile for myself in the moment. And perhaps that it would even warrant its own examination. So I filed it away. I completed that series, that book, and then several years later was reading a fabulous book, which is called.

The witches Salem 1692 by the historical biographer, Stacy Schiff. And of course was reminded of this ancestor of mine because he's, like I said, a sort of central character in the story of the Salem witch trials. So this in social coincidence, came flooding back to me. And it was this time of year.

I remember. And I was seeing Stacy shiff speak at, I think I forget where it was somewhere in the city, in New York. And I started thinking about the witch as an archetype, it's a word that has traveled through time in any different guises you have. The Spanish inquisition in which people around Europe were accused of witchcraft is burned at the stake.

You have the Salem witch trials, you have the brothers Grimm fairy tales of the kind of old hag living in the woods, preying on children. And then you have, the Disney version and the wizard of Oz, the green skin hooks. Wart and the end of the nose kind of character. And it's, so it's this word that has traveled through time and has acquired quite a bit of baggage.

And I just got really interested in the witch as an archetype and realize that there are people who. I think have come to this word and have practiced modern witchcraft or what is modern witchcraft. This was the jumping off point for my project to answer the question, who is a witch today?

Who does that word belong to? And what does a practice of witchcraft actually entail?

Eva Hartling: That is so interesting. And I love obviously the fact that, you not only do you have a witch in your family tree, but you have somebody who was responsible for leading witch hunts and unfortunately convening women and men who were found guilty of witchcraft.

Does it feel, do you feel that you have a connection to these ancestors of yours and I'm probably asking more in. Your, what was it, your eight grandmother who was found guilty of witchcraft herself. And I asked that because having read different books around not only the historical side of witchcraft, but also reading about women who feel that we have a certain type of intergenerational trauma when it comes to pretty much anybody who comes from a European background. Would have a witch at some point in their lineage or somebody who knew somebody who was tried as a witch, and it's very much part of, our unique, personal and family history.

So wondering if you felt that personal connection as part of that,

Frances F. Denny: So I think it's important to remember that the people who were accused of witchcraft in Salem and before that frankly would not have identified as witches themselves. This was a word that was used against largely women, but not exclusively to, to women, but people living outside the status quo or Or perhaps it was, your neighbor who had a better apple harvest that year than you.

So it was for any sort of reason. This was a word that was levied against people to invoke hate and fear and violence. Ultimately, in many cases, So the word was incredibly powerful, but it wasn't powerful in the way that I would argue it is today because the people today who identify as witches have reclaimed that word from this very shadowy place personally on a personal level, I do think about my great grandmother.

Her name is Mary bliss Parsons. And the ways that she was, I could go into more detail about her story if you're interested, but she was she, there was a jealous neighbor of hers. She had many children, she would very fortunate in that regard. And her neighbor was not many children at that time would die in childbirth or shortly thereafter.

But this neighbor was really unlucky in that way and was envious of Mary and And so at the, so the story goes is that was why she, jealously condemned Mary to this fate. So Mary was later acquitted. She went to trial in Boston with acquitted, but, yes, to be descended from somebody who had that fate is it's heavy.

It's also very happy to be descended from the person, the oppressor in the story, and I think they, you can't, I can't really separate the two to be descended from both the oppressor figure and the oppressed. I think those both need to weigh equally heavily and in my mind.

Eva Hartling: And you're absolutely right to be making that distinction.

And in fact, many of the it was both women and men, but many of the people found guilty or the ones accused of witchcraft were not in fact never, w. Practicing any type of witchcraft or other, set tenic modalities. And I think it was, I think my, my, my question had to do with More about the concept of women specifically being witch hunted throughout the centuries.

And as you pointed out, usually because the dared being different, or they dealt with somebody who was envious or jealous or, felt in competition with them. And and I think it's interesting what you bring up, which is today who have reclaimed that title. But I think today we still have the two types of witches, because it's still feels like women are. Persecuted and found guilty of a number of things so that, that concept of using accusing women of doing something wrong and then putting them on trial has, it may have shifted and changed. We may not be calling it a witch hunts anymore, but it's still taking place,

Frances F. Denny: Scapegoating and double standards.

Women are accused of things that men wouldn't be. Absolutely.

Eva Hartling: So I'd love to hear about starting to work on the photo project around witches. So how where did you start and how where D how did the, how did you find your first, witch, basically.

Frances F. Denny: Yeah. So once I had figured out what I wanted to do it was no easy feat doing it because I was such an outsider to the world of modern witchcraft.

So what I did was write a letter that was basically an artist statement talking about my ancestral connection and my sort of intention for the project. And I sent it to a handful of women that I already knew who I had a kind of. Just a hunch about or intuition. You could say that I thought they would understand what I was getting at.

It was scary, frankly, to be emailing people, asking them in so many words, are you a witch? And do you want to be photographed within this, photography portrait series as a witch? But much to my amazement, they very quickly. Jumped on board and got excited about it. And we did the photo shoots interviews and then they in turn introduced me to people that they knew who also identified as witches in different capacities.

And very soon after I had maybe a critical mass of 10 or 12 people I had, which is coming out of my ears. You should've have seen my inbox. It was like, this vast network that spanned across the country of people who I would be sending this letter to and getting connected to their friends and their coven mates and et cetera.

So it became this pretty large web that grew up around me. So like it, it's not very sexy to say so, but it was almost like this networking endeavor I have to say. And then I also did, aside from. Getting referred by people that I had photographed or knew. I also did some scouting at witchcraft festivals and culture books, bookstores, or shops around the country.

Any time we went to a new place, I would hit up the local occult shop and do some scouting there. And then also on Instagram too, but it was, it became really apparent to me quite early on. The landscape of American witchcraft is incredibly diverse and that my photographs needed to represent that diversity really faithfully.

And I don't mean diversity just in terms of say ethnicity or belief system or type of witchcraft being practiced. But it, in terms of geography, age body type, it really, I knew that the photographs needed to reflect all of these. Multi-dimensional ways that so many different kinds of people around the country, we're embodying this word, which

Eva Hartling: and so who are those witches?

And and I'm sure there are common patterns or shared beliefs. How would you describe them and how did they describe themselves?

Frances F. Denny: So what I realized was that, there was no one way to be a witch. There's no, Perfect definition. It's a gray area. It's not black and white and that's frankly what I really liked.

And I'm continually so interested in it. It's this murky mutable identity. So while you could, I photographed several, Wiccan individuals, wiccan high priestesses and Wicca is a Neo pagan religion. There are many sects of wicca and there they could be quite prescribed like specific, initiation rituals to get, go up the ranks.

Isn't the greatest word to use, but to enter into a Wiccan coven, but but then there it is, it can be w the idea of which can be extremely self defined an individual. So it could be, I met people who identified as green witches, they were herbalists or use plant magic and then sex, witches, who use their work as sex workers in a way that they thought of as a kind of witchcraft, I met space, witches, hedge, witches, gray, witches, all of these different types of ways of thinking about this word and embodying it.

But I think that at the end of the day, The thing that I think many of them had in common was that they were drawn to witchcraft as a way to find a kind of agency or internal power or a way of cultivating an internal power and whether or not that power energy was used.

In a reflexive internal way or was directed outwards towards others in say a healing capacity or healing modality. It didn't matter. It was this kind of conjuring of something inside.

Eva Hartling: That's so interesting. Curious to know what was the reaction of people around you when you shared the work you were putting together and even as the book came out, and the question behind that for me is how are, which is perceived today?

Frances F. Denny: I think, it's hard for me as someone who's been working, I've been working on this project for three years. I shot it for three years and. I had to constantly remind myself that people didn't have the same. Degree of nuance that I was acquiring about this word, which, and to most people, they had the same old sort of baggage that that I had first come to it with.

So you think of the brothers Grimm or the Disney or the witch. So like the jokey kind of version of this. And so when I there were so many. Gatherings or dinner parties where people would ask me what I was working on, I would say, oh I'm working on this project photographing, which is around the country.

And they would, snort with laughter, understand what I even meant. And I understand why, because it is this word that has not been given. I think a sense of sort of dignity or hasn't really been looked at a new, in a really long time.

Eva Hartling: And do you think, how can we.

How can witches get and I don't want to pass judgment as I pose this question, but how do we get, which is to be taken seriously or is a time for witchcraft to be accepted in the mainstream because it does feel like there is that continuation of, the belief that witches are a bad thing.

And I think usually it would be. Pretty much anybody who's afraid of a woman who owns her power and who stepped into her power would be somebody who's against witches, obviously. So how, where can that shift happen? And I think I clearly see a parallel with, and in many parallels have been established with the feminist movement, obviously.

Frances F. Denny: Absolutely. So I knew that I wanted to. Photograph these individuals with a lot of dignity and to also give them a hand in how they were represented. So I did back in the way, the sort of methods or technique that I use in photographing them. So I would always ask them to choose the location of their portrait session and also what they wore.

And then when I went to do the book, we did interview. In which they contributed, what became these short essays in the book, and then in the exhibition that's currently up. And that was really important to me because as an outsider to this world, the witch world didn't mean just another outsider to come in and objectify them in imagery and, say goodbye.

I wanted to be. I wanted to give them the platform to also be a part of their own representation. So I think that's a way that, hopefully this representation doesn't is not a joke. It is more nuanced than a kind of caricature version of who the.

Eva Hartling: And I love that your work is currently on display in Salem of all places.

So the work was selected to be shown at the the Peabody Essex museum in Salem. How did that happen and how does it feel to basically have come full circle, with your, your kind of connection and, and lineage even though it wasn't specifically in, in Salem in the case of your grandmother, but

Frances F. Denny: Yeah, it's it's a dream come true to have my work at the

The show is called the Salem witch trials, reckoning and reclaiming. And it's a selection of my portraits as well as the work of Alexander McQueen, the fashion designer who also was similarly inspired by an ancestor of his, who was in the Salem trials and was one of the first people put to death.

And he in 2007, did a collector. And inspired by this ancestor. So the show is, I'm so proud of it. I'm so happy to be a part of it. And it's also such hallowed halls for me because I grow grew up just outside of Boston, not that far from Salem. So I've been going to this museum my whole life. So it's wildly exciting to have that show up and I hope that your listeners will visit it if they can.

It's up until March 20th, 20, 20.

Eva Hartling: Great. And we'll share the links to the museum and the exhibit curious to know what plays this witchcraft or just the concept of a witch occupies in your own.

Frances F. Denny: It's such a good question. I have been asked and thank you for putting it so federally, I have had people say, so where are you a witch too?

Which two and all well and good, but I'm afraid my answer can be disappointing because I, I don't see myself as a witch because for some sort of simple fact that I don't have a witchcraft practice at all. However, I think that doing this project. Giving me a new way of looking at the act of photographing as a kind of intuitive act that is magical.

It does when I am in tune with my subject and reading them and listening to them and holding space for them, it feels like a kind of magic and I can't really write down or tell you exactly how I do what I do because it comes from something so interior and instinctual, but

but I think that having immersed myself in this world for so long I do see that as a kind of magic.

Eva Hartling: And what would you suggest to women who are looking to, reclaim their inner witch or tap into their inner witch. And even if we're not talking about actual witchcraft, but as you just pointed out, there are elements of the concept of a witch that I think can be quite positive to, to bring and quite empowering to bring into.

Frances F. Denny: There are so many wonderful books out there. There's my book, major Arcana portraits of witches in America, a good place to start if for no other reason than you can see, like how many different ways of embodying this word there are. And it could act hopefully as a kind of portal into this world.

But another book that I would emphatically tell your listeners to purchase without waiting is Pam Grossman's, book waking the witch. Pam is a dear friend now, and she wrote the introduction to mine and she's just fabulous and this book is so smart and really looks at this idea of which from a really contemporary standpoint that I think many of your listeners will identify with.

So I would definitely point her to, to point them to that. And then also when I'm to starting out. Researching witchcraft, contemporary witchcraft. I looked at Margo Adler's book drawing down the moon. Margot Adler was a late NPR correspondent. She was also a Wiccan priestess and wrote this fabulous book that for me as someone who is really, as I said, an outsider to this world really helped me get the lay of the land.

In a way that didn't feel super, woo or Hocus-Pocus-y it felt really anthropological almost. And I really liked that book a lot.

Eva Hartling: And I want to ask you in closing. There might be a link, which is, but it's a question I always ask us on this show and it's one that I love hearing the diversity of answers to.

Is there something you wish women would do less of?

Frances F. Denny: Probably look at Instagram, or social media, especially young women. I think, this week it's like particularly thinking about the ways in which social media. Let's say the ways in which social media distorts our perceptions of others and also ourselves can be so damaging.

I have a young daughter who's almost four, and I dread the day that she asked me for a phone, or a Facebook account or an Instagram account. Yeah, I would say that and I'm of course a total hypocrite, cause I have an Instagram account and it's a really important tool yeah. As a photographer and an artist.

But yeah, I think that's what I would say.

Eva Hartling: It's finding the balance because I think using social platforms in a context of promoting our work or, doing business development or connecting with our community can have a positive effect, but we're all very aware of the dark side and the negative impact of social media.

And this was brought to light in recent weeks as you

Frances F. Denny: just pointed out. Yeah. It is a, it's a really important tool. Exactly. But exactly. It's important to really examine the ways in which we're using.

Eva Hartling: We'll need witches to to work on Facebook.

Frances F. Denny: Show us the way.

Eva Hartling: And you brought up your daughter, so actually I'll squeeze in another question how did she react to the witch project and what is her take on which

Frances F. Denny: witchcraft and

Eva Hartling: witches.when

Frances F. Denny: n she first thought she was a little bit too young to really understand it, but really in the last six months, she's gotten very hung up on the kind of age, old archetypes of princesses and Queens and mothers. And and I've been trying to encourage her to think about the witch.

Not just the evil character in the fairytale. And I'm careful about what media and what books I show her, but it is, it's such a reminder about how pervasive these old tropes and sensibilities are. And it really gives me so much energy and thinking about. This project I think is so important.

And it is so important to complicate the usual characters or tropes that we give our children because those characters are models. And so

Eva Hartling: representation

Frances F. Denny: matters. Exactly. So I like the idea is let's not justsideline the witch as likee the evil nasty Antagonist all the time.

She's cool. She's powerful. She gets to do what she wants, but it's, I don't know how much that message is sticking yet.

Eva Hartling: Yeah. I think your book is contributing to, helping change the narrative on how witches are perceived. So thank you for that. And we'll link up the exhibit and the book as well.

Congratulations on your work. And and actually I'm going to squeeze in one last question. I promise that it's truly the last one. Where are you being called or what are you being called to work on next? Is there, was there a continuation after, that exploration of the feminine and then connection with your family and the first book taking you to witches.

And do you have any any insights on where the journey has taken you next.

Frances F. Denny: It's a bit of a plot twist, but in the winter of 2021, I started writing a screenplay. So it's not a photo project, but I'm writing a screenplay. I have written the screenplay. That is an adaptation. The story of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, but it's set in contemporary times.

So that's what I've been working on and feel really excited about. So that's my answer to your question. That,

Eva Hartling: that sounds really interesting. I can't wait to hear more and see where it takes you would love to. I'd love to concept. Thank you. Thank you so much, Frances. It was great. Hearing a little bit more about your story.

We'll check out your book and hopefully visit the exhibit and thank you for your time today.

Frances F. Denny: Thank you so much, Eva. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

Eva Hartling: I really hope you enjoy today's conversation.

And if you did, as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and give us a review wherever that is possible. Thank you to TD bank group women entrepreneurs, further support of The Brand is Female. You've got it in you to succeed. Let TD help guide you. Visit The Brand is Female dot com slash podcast and click on the TD logo.

Thank you for listening. I'll be back in a week with a new guest. Thank you so much for listening to a podcast by The Brand is Female I'm Eva Hartling. And this episode was produced by our team sound engineering by Isabel Morris, research and production support, Claire Miglionico marketing and digital growth, Kayla, Gillis and partnerships, Natalie hope.