"I am not going to hurt her. She is my wife, i know what my strength is, but i have to teach her that she can't lie to me..."
These are the words Garth uttered to Donna Ferrato, the photographer captured in the mirror. She'd been awakened that night by Lisa's screams. It was the first time she'd ever witnessed such a violent scene. She had tried many times to reason with Garth to no success . She thought that if she photographed him, he would be embarrassed to be portrayed in such a light. After all, this was not the reason the New Jersey couple had opened the doors to their intimacy to Donna. It is 1982, when Playboy Japan magazine commissioned her a series of photos on swingers culture seduced by her work on the nightlife of New York sex clubs such as Plato's Retreat. The offer came just at the right time. She has just befriended Garth and Lisa, regulars at Plato's Retreat who practice polyamorism. Donna photographs their daily life, the all-night parties laced with alcohol, the family reunions, the children, the swingers' evenings and then the drugs, a little, a lot, passionately. Lisa worries. She hides the cocaine pipe to protect him... to protect herself.
It's one of those nights. One of those nights she'd learned to bury in a corner of her mind.
Donna packed her bags the next day, and then she put the film negatives in a drawer. Don't talk about it. Make the strokes bolder ... Lisa ... Smooth the edges ... Lisa ... I had to talk about it, be the voice of these legions of women caught up in the cycle of domestic abuse. She, Donna would be their voice. An artist was born.
For info
If you want to learn more about the artist, I recommend a short documentary from Time magazine with Donna Ferrato and Elisabeth Lindberg (aka Lisa). You can also check her website.She also has a wonderful website where you can buy her photo albums, I highly recommend "Living with the enemy" published in 1991 and "Holy" published in January 2021, an ode to women forged by a photographer's indignation against a world that is too often mysogynous. This book is a way of celebrating our constant resilience.