Max, a Chinese Pug, with Denise Eisner and Sheba Harris
on the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River
in New York City, New York, USA
on the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River
in New York City, New York, USA
DOGS and their Dykes is a tribute to honor, and illuminate in a lesbian-positive light, the very personal, sacred dynamic of Unconditional Love between spirited dogs and the lesbians who adore them.
Before I had kids, my dogs were my kids, unequivocally! Almost all my friends also had dogs who were their kids. Naturally, I realized this phenomenon needed acknowledgment - like a book - so, I made one!
For more than 17 years, I’ve searched destinations far and wide, initiating thousands of conversations to creatively capture a myriad of mixes and nearly
80 varieties of purebreds, all manners of wildness in womyn, and a potpourri of environments that illustrate the narrative of our lives. My vision is celebrating everyone's uniqueness and exemplifying our exquisite diversity.
My dream is to create a sense of belonging for all womyn, especially for isolated lesbians around the planet, to recognize their membership in our global tribe. It matters not from where womyn hail, whether they are still closeted or flamboyantly unabashed lesbian activists. DOGS and their Dykes is a book to visually praise our differences and our oneness, simultaneously.
The welcoming nature of the womyn I photographed has been memorably touching. Consistently moved by their unpredictable openheartedness, contagious enthusiasm and fortuitous partnerships, my journey has been charmed. Having struggled myself from time to time to feel like I belong to our tribe or stay connected to the dykes in my community, this consistent outpouring restored my faith in the loveliness of our lesbian culture.
My dedicated pursuit began before the internet was of much help (the only chat room I found back then was PlanetOUT) which required me to be strategically savvy, intuitively inventive and socially outlandish! Not being particularly extroverted myself, I really had to stretch as I randomly inquired of the general public as to whether womyn were willing candidates for my book. Many surprising conversations ensued... So far, my favorite decline came from someone who I thought to be the answer to my dream, a delightful East Indian woman with a Vizsla, whose response to my request was, "Oh, I'm so sorry I can't; I'm hopelessly heterosexual!"
As a result of my reluctant courage, I’ve rendezvoused exuberantly with hundreds of pooches and people in Costa Rica, Guatemala, 3 Mexican States,
33 United States, 2 Canadian Provinces, and most recently Hong Kong.
Nearly 15,000 black and white negatives later (now with 1000 new digital images and growing!), it’s glaringly obvious that these dogs found their “mothers,” and these lucky womyn, their “children.” The profoundly deep bonds of these relationships have bestowed significant new meaning
to the word “family," beyond our mere colloquialism.
I invite you inside with an enthusiastic bark and open arms!
Azure Amarilla Lavender
