Creating a safe place within the U.S. military for service members to transition and thrive is the life’s work of Logan and Laila, who were married in Hawaii in 1916.
The partners are trans and have dedicated their lives to mentoring service members navigating the process of transition.
For Wilmington photographer BarbaraProud (who creates her art as B. Proud), Logan and Laila are one of dozens of couples throughout the country who inspire her photo exhibition, “Transcending Love: Portraits of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Couples and Families.’’
“Transcending Love’’ is on view through June at Perkins Center for the Arts in Collingswood, New Jersey. It features portraits of committed couples, as well as families, presented with written stories and video to more fully capture their lives.
Logan, a staff sergeant, is active-duty Air Force working in security forces. A 12-year Army veteran, Laila works in health care management and administration, and served as an interrogator and medic, before receiving a medical discharge. Laila did two deployments to Iraq, while Logan served in Afghanistan and Qatar.
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“Both Logan and Laila represent the presence, strength, and resilience of transgender service members in the United States military,’’ B. Proud said in promoting the show.
The photographer’s vision for “Transcending Love’’ wasn’t a series of studio portraits, or candids shot as the couples went about the business of day-to-day life.
She wanted her images to capture the inherent dignity of the people she got to know, sharing with the viewer not just their devotion to each other but their strength and individuality, all in a setting symbolic of their partnership.
For Laila and Logan, that was the Garden of the Gods, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“I wanted them to feel special and elevated and honored, not just take 200 pictures and say thanks, … I wanted them to be environmental, as well,’’ the artist said. “They would be surrounded by someplace that would tell you more about who they are.’’
Portraits take several hours to come together, and in at least one case, several days, said B. Proud, who teaches classes in professional photography practices and studio lighting and techniques at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
“I tell them, we’re not just doing a 10-minute take. We’re going to make a work of art together,’’ said the award-winning photographer who won her first camera at age 9 in a raffle.
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The project grew out of a previous series, “First Comes Love: Portraits of Enduring LGBTQ Relationships.’’ Those portraits,, which featured everyday people as well as celebrities, were shot shot in black and white, “to strip away all rainbow flag connotations.’’ The project later became a book.
For the newer series, she said it was important to capture their lives in color “because the transgender community is anything but black and white.’’
B. Proud graduated from William Penn in 1974, and her family has a long history in Old New Castle. For this project, she traveled the country, making connections with couples from big cities and small towns, on both coasts and deep into the heartland. Among the faces in the gallery is that of Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride, and the first openly trans state senator in the U.S., who has fought for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Her husband, transgender lawyer Andrew Cray, died of cancer just days after they wed.
The project’s mission is to raise visibility for couples and their families.
“Visibility is validating,’’ B. Proud observed.
“It’s important for young trans people to see, I can have a life with a partner and be in love and have a future and perhaps a family.’’
In some portraits, there are children or a baby on the way. That was important for the artist, who said showing family life is one way to help others connect with the people in the photos.
While B. Proud was deeply inspired by the couples, at some point, she began feeling “Transcending Love’’ was only telling half the story.
“For LGBT people, it’s a dangerous time,’’ said B. Proud, who lives with wife Allison, and two dogs, Soleil and Cosette. “I’ve been to 24 states and photographed 70 couples, and as I was traveling, I felt something was missing, I felt that I wasn’t telling the whole story. I was celebrating all of this beauty and I was celebrating the humanity of the community, but there was another side to it.’’
While watching TV in a hotel one day, “it smacked me in the head.’’
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“Say Their Names: Violence Against the Trans Community’’ is a series of photographs memorializing the places — a riverbank, a Food Mart, a barbecue joint — where a trans person has been murdered.
While she’s aware that participating in “Transcending Love’’ can be validating for its subjects, such visibility also can put couples at risk, more risk than they already face daily, along with discrimination in everything from employment to housing to healthcare.
“If I show this work, and people just say, ‘This is really beautiful,’ then I’ve failed. It’s showing the beauty but also opening up the possibilities that we all need to do something to help this community, and this is why. People are dying. Sadly, everywhere I go, there is a trans person who has been murdered, and has grown exponentially since 2016.’’
The show in Collingswood marks the first time B. Proud has shown both projects side-by-side. “I had a chance, and I took it and the response has been powerful.’’
She recalls a guest at the opening reception who remarked on “how edgy’’ the show seemed for the art center, but also that it was “so amazing, so powerful.’’
“And she started to cry,’’ B. Proud recalled. “If I can reach just one person, then I’ve done my job. It’s the power of one. If I can change one person’s mind, it’s a matter of education and then understanding and acceptance will follow. But it’s only from learning from someone’s story and getting to know them that you can say, they’re just like me.’’
The South Jersey show is only the second time “Transcending Love’’ has been shown to the public. It was on view at Stonewall National Museum in Fort Lauderdale when COVID struck, and has been in boxes in the artist’s home ever since.
But many more people will soon see portraits from the series. B. Proud has pieces in eight or nine exhibitions this summer. She’s also the recipient of a masters fellowship grant from the state of Delaware, and she will have four works on view at the Biggs Museum in Dover next month.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art purchased two portraits from “Transcending Love.’’
“That really makes me happy because I know the work will be in a major institution and the community will be represented there.’’
She recalled an evening eating dinner in a Kentucky bar.
“I try, wherever I am, to have the conversations because having the conversation is the way forward,’’ she said. “I have pictures with me, and I show them what I’m doing, and they start to ask questions. I show them what they haven’t seen before. One man said, ‘I guess we learned something, didn’t we?’
“I cracked open the door a little, but it can be dangerous.’’
“ … I try to follow the African principal of Ubuntu, a basic humanity to all,’’ she continues. “I can’t be successful unless you are successful, I am because we are, and if you are not successful then I fail. I have to work together to be sure you are thriving as well, and then the world lifts up. If people would just try to do that, to embrace other people then we wouldn’t have the hatred that runs rampant today.’’
“Transcending Love’’ and “Say Their Names,’’ exhibits by B. Proud are on view in the Loft Gallery, Perkins Center for the Arts, 30 Irvin Ave., Collingswood, New Jersey, through June 30. Visit perkinsarts.org.
B. Proud will be part of the Delaware Division of the Arts Award Winners XXIII exhibit, July 13 to Sept. 24 at the Biggs Museum, 406 Federal St., Dover. biggsmuseum.org/exhibitions/
B. Proud websites: bproudphoto.com/ and transcendinglove.org/
