The Wilma W. Daniels Gallery is thrilled to announce a unique collaborative exhibition, Flying While Falling, which merges powerful images with short fiction inspired by those photographs. This exciting exhibition features photographer Carolyn DeMeritt’s series of black and white photos of girls from 1986 through 1990, entitled “When I was Little … I Thought I Could Fly.” These stunning portraits are paired with flash-fiction pieces composed by Margo Williams; the series of very short, imaginative stories, entitled “Falling in Love Like Little Girls Fall in Love,” are directly inspired by the images created through DeMeritt’s lens.

Flying While Falling carries the tradition of ekphrasis – describing visual art work with vivid, often dramatic or poetic descriptions – into the modern era. According to Williams, “I found such freedom in creating 300- to 500-word pieces that reflect what I see in the photo images, some part of myself, and some mysterious process of the imagination from which creation comes. It is important that readers understand that the pieces are completely fabricated from my imagination, inspired by the beautiful photos, yet having no basis in the realities of these young girls, their families, or the women they have become.” When describing the photographs in this exhibition, DeMeritt explained, “From 1986 through 1990, I photographed ten young girls – shooting each girl several times each year – as they grew from late childhood into adolescence. These portraits attempt to celebrate this growth and examine the physical and emotional changes that occur in young women during this period of life, a period that can only be described as exhilarating and bewildering in the same breath.”

The exhibition will open on Friday, August 13, 2021, with an opening reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and will run through Friday, October 1, 2021. The exhibition will also be part of Fourth Friday Gallery Nights, and will host receptions on both August 23^rd and September 24^th, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. each night.