“The hardest part was when she was dying, and I couldn’t say we were married,” reads the quote below a portrait of Esther Lucero hanging in the Museum of Boulder’s second-floor Lodge Gallery. “We were together 33 years.”
Lucero spent those years with her wife Cathy in the throes of joy. In her portrait in the ongoing exhibition, Eye to Eye: Portraits of Pride, Strength, Beauty, she looks into the camera with a natural smile that meets her eyes. She agreed to have her picture taken to honor Cathy’s memory, who passed away from leukemia in 2018.
“I felt nobody knew Cathy, they really didn't, and that we were partners, that we were anything,” the 70-year-old Denver resident tells Boulder Weekly. “I said, ‘OK, this is for Cathy.’ I want people to know that she existed and that we were together for 33 years. I wanted acknowledgement of our relationship — our marriage.”
Featuring the images and stories of Colorado-based LGBTQ women between ages 59 and 85, the ongoing gallery show by local photographer Carey Candrian is an effort to counteract the erasure they face everyday.
Candrian is an associate professor of internal medicine at CU Anschutz whose research focuses primarily on how communication barriers impact older LGBTQ adults and their caretakers. For many, coming out to their doctor could put them at risk of receiving worse treatment or being denied care altogether, Candrian says. But presenting an incomplete picture of themselves and their life also creates its own health risks — it’s an impossible choice.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration moved to cut more than $4 billion in medical research at universities, hospitals and other scientific institutions. Those plans, which have since been temporarily halted by a federal judge, could directly impact the grants that make research like Candrian’s possible.
“There's been a lot of attempts to continue to erase this community, or to not count them, and we're seeing blatant moves to do just that,” Candrian says. “My career is basically on older, LGBTQ people, which are words that are totally forbidden. They're threatened daily to be defunded. It has massive effects on people doing this work, and people who are part of this community. The fear is magnified in ways that I don't think we ever could even have imagined.”
‘We are people’
The idea for a photography exhibit began to germinate as the 43-year-old researcher from Hygiene was struggling to find ways to disseminate her findings that actually engaged people. Reports and data presentations were falling flat. People were unable to connect the devastating statistics with the real people they represented, so she turned to her passion for photography.
“It should be how researchers think about their work,” she says. “We should be thinking about how to do more with the arts.”
With a robust network of LGBTQ women she had already gotten to know through research interviews, Candrian reached out to find those who might be interested in the photo project. She was able to make 24 portraits for the exhibition.
For some like Denver resident Julia Condolora, 71, saying yes was a no brainer. But as a transgender woman who came out later in life, she says she felt some imposter syndrome being included with women who, in her mind, had experienced a lot more hardship than she had.
But seeing her portrait hung up alongside the other women was an honor, and deeply rewarding, Condolora says. She hopes people who visit the exhibit are moved by the experience of seeing LGBTQ people as they truly are.
“We are people, and we've gone through [a lot] over the years just to be our authentic selves,” Condolora says. “I would certainly hope that most people would not want to see us go back to where we had to hide ourselves.”
This traveling testament to LGBTQ resilience has made a number of stops prior to its current stint at Museum of Boulder. Since its debut in October 2021, Eye to Eye has exhibited at the CU Anschutz campus, the United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs, two United Methodist churches in Longmont, the Denver Public Library, the Denver Art Museum and Dairy Arts Center in Boulder.
Seeing people connect with the art has been fulfilling for Candrian , especially in forums like churches where LBGTQ people haven't always been welcomed. By celebrating the community loudly, she hopes to move the needle on public attitude.
“I know this exhibit is not going to change the horrendous brokenness of the world,” Candrian says. “But my hope is that it changes a couple people, who then change a few more, and then change a few more, and just plant seeds.”
‘Perfect, just as they are’
Lakewood resident Pamela Thiele, 77, was thrilled to participate in the project. The idea that her portrait would be printed and hung in a museum was almost surreal, but she felt it was important to represent her community. So she took a leap of faith to trust Candrian.
“We have the triple whammy of being old, which is invisible, and women, which are invisible, and then lesbians, which are really invisible,” she says. “I was thrilled that someone was actually going to look at us, even if nothing else happened. The fact that someone from a different generation, a younger generation, could actually see that we were humans, was tremendously meaningful to me.”
Many marginalized populations have had bad experiences with academic professionals in the past, so it was important to Candrian that all the women could trust her and were enthusiastic about participating.
Though Candrian was behind the camera, it was also a vulnerable and emotional experience for her as a fellow member of the LGBTQ community. Honoring the women who lived through hardship and grief but still maintain a sense of joy was important to her, she says.
“Because of their courage, [earlier generations] have made my life and millions of others a little bit easier,” Candrian says. “I have love for every single one of these people.”
When the women come to view their own portraits, Candrian says she wants them to feel brave, courageous and beautiful.
”Despite the majority of the world telling them they're wrong and sick and awful,” she says, “[I want them] to have a moment like this where they can remember they are perfect, just as they are.”
ON VIEW: Eye to Eye: Portraits of Pride, Strength, Beauty. Through April 20, Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway. $10