Picture Perfect

Hers are sincere works, ones that deliberately choose to shine a spotlight on subjects that might go unnoticed to a lesser-educated lens.

"It doesn't have a whole lot to do with the subject in the beginning, in terms of the conceptual part," Block says of what makes for a good picture. "I choose my subjects in terms of what I need to know about life, about people, about myself, and I then pursue that group of people."

To Feel Less Alone

encompasses some 50 or so selected works, taken between 1975 and 2012.

Block started photographing the Jewish community in her native Houston as a way of documenting what was familiar.

"I wanted to find out how they came to be who they were," Block reminisces. "What I came to learn is that they were—as Jews in a city where they were a vast minority—they needed to assimilate and turn away from outward manifestations of them being Jewish in order to have the upward mobility that this country promises."

Since then, taking on the role of cultural anthropologist, she's tracked other ever-changing communities, including Miami Beach's elderly, before they were ousted by gentrification.

"They could walk to the beach and sit around singing their Yiddish songs, they could go to a neighborhood grocery store, they could take care of themselves very simply," she says. "They all said, 'If we had stayed in New York, we'd just be waiting to die'…it was heaven."

To Feel Less Alone
5:30 pm Friday, May 1
New Mexico Museum of Art
107 W Palace Ave.,
476-5072

Santa Fe Reporter