Is Rarity or scarcity of greater value . Is a topic Infrequently discussed. A topic with more power of attention. There are two loaded subjects: death and sex ..[topic point in EXS, 1974]. If we add aging, have we multiplied a value by its scarcity.

Most artists are interested in self as youth, after all, that is where and when they began . One of the most common pictures seen in freshman photography classes are self portraits from the women students — common trope is legs in tub; while the male students photograph themselves before a mirror holding a camera. The women have taken the picture from their eye view. Men and women place themselves into different environs, engaged in different actions. These transactional differences seem to apply universally across art schools.

One arc: FROM LOOKING AT OTHERS.. TO LOOKING.. looking to seeing?

–[At thirty-eight, while living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Rosalind Fox Solomon began a new life as a photographer. Studying with Lisette Model in the early 1970s, she honed the photographic voice which would define the prodigious half-century of work to follow. After moving to a loft in New York City in 1984, and travelling to Peru, India, South Africa, Cambodia, and beyond, she became renowned for her unflinching photography of everyday life around the world.

www.mackbooks.us/products/a-woman-i-once-knew-br-rosalind-fox-solomon

With Camera

–[ The With Camera series (2001—06) marked the first time Joan Semmel purposefully posed in front of the mirror with a camera. Like her earlier Locker-Roomworks (1988—91), these paintings celebrate the aging process through their accurate portrayal of the artist’s body. Semmel continued to develop these ideas in her Framed series (2005—2006), which presented images of her taking photographs framed inside a mirror

I want them to be more than they are… they serve as stand ins for something yet to be filled. My understanding is incomplete. They have a presence I failed. Of course, some of their standing is because of the “Big Empty;” things unexplored. Age happens to be the Box they are filling in. No matter how many items they put into it, it will never be filled.

They do what they do well. That they have done so for so long is sufficient reason for engaging their work.

>> Rosalind Fox Solomon (April 2, 1930 – June 23, 2025. In 2007, the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography acquired Solomon’s archive, which includes her photographic archive, books and video work

• https://www.muuscollection.com/artists/rosalind-fox-solomon
• “Ageing party girls and pint-sized beauty queens – in pictures“, The Guardian, March 8, 2016. Retrieved July 24, 2016.

>> Joan Semmel (born October 19, 1932…Semmel states, “While my work developed through series, the connecting thread across decades is a single perspective: being inside the experience of femaleness and taking possession of it culturally.

• Moreland, Quinn (2026-04-15). “‘I wanted my work to be shameless’: 93-year-old artist Joan Semmel on her trailblazing nudes”. The Guardian
• Richard Meyer, “’Not Me:’ Joan Semmel’s Body of Painting,” in ‘’Solitaire: Lee Lozano, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Joan Semmel’’, edited by Helen Molesworth. (Wexner Center for the Arts, 2008).
• “Joan Semmel Self-Portraits Offer Vibrant Affirmation of Aging”. Hamptons Art Hub. 2016-09-29
• You Have to Get Past the Fear”: Joan Semmel on Painting Her Aging, Nude Body, Hyperallergic Magazine September 9, 2016