Appalachia (Working People series) 1981

Milton Rogovin made this black and white photograph, part of his ‘Working People’ series, in Appalachia. I imagine Rogovin meeting this woman and asking to take her picture. I bet she invited him right in! Look at the angle of her arm and the dog nestled in it. They look like a single unit, a pillar of love and care. Her hair is huge, almost as big as the dog! Her eyeliner reminds me of the way Brice Marden would use line in his paintings, making it graphic and architectural. I wonder about the interior of the house: the wood paneling, the curtains, the hanging plant. Rogovin isn’t just interested in the woman herself, but in the space she inhabits. It makes me think about someone like Mike Disfarmer, another photographer who documented small-town life in America. All these artists are in conversation with each other, documenting the everyday and making it iconic.