North Carolina Miscellany
N C L R ONLINE
193
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Lifting Up Jesus, 1993 (photography, 10x10) by Carolyn DeMeritt
In Florida, my aunt asked us to join hands and hang our heads. I was a teenager and snuck my eyes open. It made me nervous, keeping them closed as she extolled the Lord for his bounty. What was I not supposed to see? Outside, the Virgin Mary kneeled in sand, surrounded by the rotting of small oranges. My aunt knows where to find the photo of her husband in Vietnam in bed next to a naked local girl – how old? I’m sure not old enough to say no to a man who could make her eyes burn with tear gas then come home and make his wife cry alone once she’d performed the proper accolades. We thank Jesus because a good man always looks like a miracle. We thank Mary for making a good son because we know damn well he didn’t come from any man.
CAROLYN DEMERITT is is a photographer and videographer, born in Charlotte, NC. She has participated in numerous solo and invitational exhibitions across the US. Her work is included in museums, corporate, and private collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Bank of America collection. She worked on an Emmy-nominated documentary of an AIDS activist’s death entitled Just As I Am (1993), with the late Stuart Grasberg, an award-winning producer. She also collaborated with Frye Gaillard on the book As Long As The Waters Flow: Native Americans In The South and East (John F. Blair, 1998). See more of her work on her website.