Hoe Culture

Hoe Culture, Alabama, 1937, Dorothea Lange

On Thursday of my spring break, I went to the Frist Art Museum to check out the members-only preview of the new Dorothea Lange exhibit.  I took this highly ignorant picture of one of the last photographs before leaving the exhibit.  The name, Hoe Culture, was my siren song.

As I was snapping this trash iPhone picture (of an important and skillfully composed piece of photojournalism taken 82 years ago with a bulky, medium format camera, on film, and painstakingly developed on paper - believe me, the irony is not lost) I looked down and realized that the strap of my crossbody bag had undone the top button on my shirt, and my entire left boob was out.  I was wearing a bra, obviously, and therefore didn't feel a draft.  There's no telling how long this situation existed.  I was alone, and very absorbed by the photographs.

At that same moment, a museum security guard sauntered behind me and whispered, "It's riveting, isn't it?"

The part of me that wants to believe no one saw the dingy left cup of my full-coverage grandma bra is positive he was referring to the exhibit. 

The part of me that felt instantly guilty for still thinking the word 'hoe' is funny at age 33 believes he was calling me out for taking that picture.  I'm a little embarrassed for that, but in a city lousy with murals painted for the express purpose of posing in front of them for Instagram pictures, I may have been the first (as a person who straddles the line between asinine millennial and adult who purchases an annual membership to an art museum, hence the aforementioned members-only preview event) but I know I won't be the last idiot to take that exact picture.

The part of me that lives in the real world and faces the consequences of my mistakes is pretty sure he meant my light Dust Bowl cosplay, reenacting the breastfeeding shot from Lange's iconic Migrant Mother series.