Trenity Thomas

Hold Your Ground

2023

Edition 1 of 5 TRENITY THOMAS is a self-taught photographer who has also experimented with painting and sketching since grade school. As a photographer, he has worked in a myriad of...

edition 1/5 TRENITY THOMAS is a self-taught photographer who has also experimented with painting and sketching since grade school. As a photographer, he has worked in a myriad of ge...

Joshua Kissi Gerewol , 2019 Archival pigment print 24 x 14 3/4 inches (61 x 37.5 cm) Edition 1/5

Archival pigment print (Edition of 5 + 2 APs) Signed and numbered on label, verso This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Frances F. Denny writes: “During the research process for a prior series of photographs, I discovered two related facts about my family tree: a) Mary Bliss Parsons, my 8​th​ great-grandmother, was accused of witchcraft in 1674 in Northampton, Massachusetts, and b) less than two decades later in 1692, my 10t​h​ great-grandfather, Samuel Sewell, presided as a judge in the Salem Witch Trials. One body of work came and went, but this ancestral coincidence stayed with me. What is a witch? Who does that word belong to—now? “Major Arcana: Witches in America​ is a collection of portraits of women from across the United States who identify as witches. As early as 15th-century Europe, people condemned as witches faced a cruel fate: torture, and in many cases, death. Yet despite its history, recent decades have seen a reclaiming of the word ‘witch.’ In the mid-20th century, emerging pagan communities in the United States and Europe began embracing the term, and since then, ‘witch’ has been adopted by a diverse group of people. “Major Arcana​ explores the various ways the notion of witch-ness belongs to those who claim it, representing the witch as a self-sought identity that both empowers and politicizes its bearer. Each woman photographed for ​Major Arcana​ (including genderfluid and trans individuals) pursues a form of witchcraft, whether aligned with a religion (like Wicca or Voudou) or a self-defined practice. No two individuals inhabit the term ‘witch’ in quite the same way, but many consider themselves pagan, and engage in a diversity of traditions, including: mysticism, engagement with the occult, politically-oriented activism, polytheism, ritualized ‘spell-craft,’ and plant-based healing. Among those included in the series are self-proclaimed green witches, white witches, kitchen witches...