Amanda Dickinson Pfister’s photography has been at times both haunting and charming.  After the birth of her third child, Pfister struggled to maintain her photography practice.   Using Instagram, she started producing a picture a day, committing to that process for an entire year.

About 6 months in to that project, April Pameticky started to respond to those images using a 17-syllable Americanized Haiku form first coined by poet Allen Ginsberg.  She too, was  fascinated with the friction between the role of mother and creative.  The result was 365 images and 55 poems (although this number is ever-expanding as Pameticky ‘catches’ up to Pfister’s output).

In February of 2020, She Cast Her Gaze was shown at Steckline Gallery at Newman University.  A small sampling is provided below.

 

 

 

Day 80

She saw forests
of tee-shirts
and miss-matched socks,
shrub lines of too-short pants.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 173

Crisp air,
small feet,
cinnamon toast:
she held only
the handle-bar-flag.

He rang bells
before his mouth could eat words,
before he could walk out doors.

 

 

 

 

Day 323

She thought dank cement
smelled like puddled effort
and yesterday’s locked door.