A Pregnant Pause Helps the Edit Develop
A sneak peek of new Gingers of Oregon portraits.
One year in, and my Gingers of America project is ticking along nicely. I will make another couple of trips this year, and then the portraits will be ready to bring to the world as an ensemble. The project grows over time, developing and expanding as people hear about it. I am indebted to every portrait sitter and grateful for the windows they’ve granted me into their worlds. I also give thanks to the hundreds of kind gingers who get in touch but, for reasons of time or circumstance, I am unable to meet.
This week and next, I want to share a few of the glorious people to represent the state of Oregon. They don’t all wear lumberjack shirts, though with a wine-maker, a carpenter, a former photo model and a variety of forestry types among my sitters, there are definitely strong Pacific Northwest vibes. That said, my Oregon sitters also have family histories in places including China, Vietnam, Turkey and Ireland.
The genetic mutation for ginger hair is said to have arisen in Central Asia then spread globally. I make this work to reveal the common glory of humans, overlooked by familiarity or contempt. Unique visual traits such as ginger hair help connect people across the world or, more immediately, in the same street. Please follow along to see new portraits and hear the sitters’ stories.
Luci Lettau, CA
Growing up, sweet old ladies in the grocery market would be like, ‘Oh my gosh I love your hair, it’s so beautiful; or I would walk in to get a haircut, and all the hairstylists would be like, ‘Never ever dye your hair.’
I’m from California so I’m expecting my hair to get darker this year because there’s not going to be as much sun in Oregon.
I’m used to the sun. We get maybe 50 or 60 days of rain a year where I’m from, in Sacramento. Sacramento County has about half the amount of people that live in the entirety of Oregon. Everything’s huge there. Oregon is so small.
Devine Brothers (Brian and Dave), OR
Dad is full Irish. He grew up in Northern Ireland, just outside a small town called Strabane, in County Tyrone. He left in the 1950s. His parents couldn’t afford to live there. They had no jobs and no way of making a living. So they came to Philadelphia.
Growing up in Philadelphia, we were definitely a package deal – the Devine brothers: that was kind of our brand. I think when we were in third grade, about eight years old, we switched to a new school. Being the new kids, redheads and skinny – we just stood out.
We live 20 minutes apart from each other in Portland, but our lives have overlapped in a lot of different ways. So I’ll be out somewhere, and someone’ll be like “Dave?” And vice versa. I’ve received a lot of hugs from people that I don’t actually know. I bring it in, and then I’m like, “I think you’re looking for Brian, but it’s all right, I’ll take the hug, too.”
Leyla Ersan, OR
Oregon is the perfect climate to grow wine in, and this is where some of the most spectacular wine of the world is now being made. I have my own winery, but then I’m also the general manager of a winery in Dundee. Both mine and my boss’s are natural wineries. We don’t have vineyards: we just source from organic and biodynamic vineyard sites. It’s really expensive to own land and farm your own fruit.
My dad’s from Turkey and he’s convinced he’s 100 percent Turkish. My mother’s family is from Scotland. The Borthwicks all moved to Iowa and became corn farmers.
My family definitely likes to drink wine, but they honestly thought it was crazy that I was doing this. As it’s come along, everyone’s been really excited to try it. In my family, pretty much everyone’s a teacher, and they didn’t want me to be a teacher. They wanted me to be a lawyer. So I think everyone was surprised that it was like, no, I’m actually creating stuff.
Rosalie Moore, OR
Mom: This is Rosalie and she is four.
[Ginger hair] is common in our family, but my husband’s side of the family is Asian. So it’s sort of a unique happenstance, I guess. His mom was Chinese, but she was born and raised in Thailand.
Soren Bader, OR
“There were four redheads in middle school and then quite a few in our high school. People are not really negative [about my hair]. Friends do sometimes like joking back and forth.
My twin sister is not a redhead. She makes fun of me for it. Well, she’s pretty tall, so. She’s as tall as you, which for girls is a bit taller. So she says to me, You’re ginger or red, and I say, You’re tall.”
Aarin Langford, OR
I didn’t grow up in Portland. I grew up in Monmouth, which is an hour and a half away. Our community brings us together. Owning a preschool creates a community of families that feel included. Building a support system with kids is important because they all seem to be transplants – it’s hard here to find someone who grew up in Oregon, and specifically Portland. They’ve all moved from other places, so they don’t have familial support. People from diverse backgrounds grow to become family.
My daughter’s going to be ginger. I mean, there’s always hope! I would love to pass that down. We will see. My grandma is a redhead, and my mom is kind of, but not really. In our family, it seems to skip a generation.
Born a week after I took Aarin’s portrait, her beautiful baby does not yet show ginger hair!