Queer Women Share Their Love of Lesbian Photographer JEB

The 2021 reissue of Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, originally self-published by JEB in 1979, has been met with much excitement and positive critical analyses. Several prominent lesbians recently shared their memories and reflections about this vital work with The Advocate.

On Representation: Alison Bechdel (Award-Winning Graphic Novelist)

I discovered JEB's book Eye to Eye in 1980 when I was in college and had just gotten into my first relationship. My girlfriend and I were living together for the summer, and although we could ill afford it, we each bought a copy of the book because we wanted to cut one up and put the photos on our walls. We put them up the way people put up photos of their ancestors and relatives. They reminded us who we were and where we came from. Her work was enormously important to me as a young lesbian, providing an accurate reflection of myself. I didn't see that in the world until JEB showed it to me.

On Possibility: Kaila Story (Professor, Podcaster, & Audre Lorde Endowed Chair, University of Louisville)

The first time I encountered Eye to Eye was in a queer bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich. I was 16. Her photographs of lesbians loving with ease and seeing the visible joy and freedom in their faces were something I didn't know that I needed as a young Black lesbian coming into my queer identity, but her book showed me that I didn't have to invent myself. When I was the midst of trying to figure out what being a lesbian was, JEB's work showed me the possibility of what it could be. Seeing your queer reflection out in the world, especially when you are just beginning to imagine that self, is the thing that freedom dreams are made of.

On Community: Catherine Opie (Photographer and Professor, University of California, Los Angeles)

I graduated from high school in 1979, when Eye to Eye came out, and I started at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981. No one taught JEB at school, but she was well-known in lesbian subcultures. I first saw her book at the Artemis Cafe in the Mission where us lesbians would go to drink coffee and socialize. This was the height of lesbian separatism. Memories of those early lesbian communities came flooding back when I received my copy of this reissue (after decades of trying, unsuccessfully, to get my hands on a copy!). What had been embedded in my subconscious is rendered conscious. I'm happy to see JEB finally getting her due. I teach her work, and now her book will be available in the library at UCLA.

On Mentoring: Del LaGrace Volcano (Artist, Activist, & Parent for Social Justice)

I first saw Eye to Eye in 1980 as a photography major at SFAI. A Joan Jett look-alike in my class, Charmaine, introduced me to Scott's Pit [a working-class lesbian bar] and to orgasms, which meant I was finally able to fulfill my childhood dream of becoming a lesbian. Eye to Eye was groundbreaking, inspiring, and totally in sync with the lesbian politics of the moment. I started making work about my newly discovered lesbian community full of passing butch dykes on bikes and femme lesbian strippers but was shunned by students, teachers, and the school administration. We were treated like the "dirty" secret of Lesbian Nation. I signed up for a workshop with JEB, expecting more of the same censorial attitude. Instead, I found warm camaraderie and support when I needed it most. JEB encouraged me to follow my own path, and for this I am forever grateful.

On Making: Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Author and Activist)

Praise, praise, praise for the portal makers -- those diligent, loving souls who made sure we would have a way back to witness the world-changing bravery of our communities. JEB is a portal maker. The value of her work for those of us who were not on the planet yet is beyond measure. JEB's photographs and interviews offer us the treasure of persistent lesbian feminist presence. Her life is evidence of love. JEB could have done anything. And she chose us. Generations of us. I am part of the multitude that is made possible by JEB's love.