Shades – Aaron Canipe & Sara J. Winston, words by Nat Ward

Parenthood. It can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. Yet it presents a multitude of challenges that test even the most resilient person. It is not for everyone, but a journey that is ever-shifting and filled with love, joy, and growth, as well as pain and exhaustion. To choose to be a parent is an act of radical optimism.

Shades presents the parallel paths of Aaron Canipe and Sara J. Winston as they traverse the experience of raising their children. Begun as part of “A New Nothing” (www.anewnothing.com), the photographers have held an image-based conversation from October 4th, 2017 to present day.

Aaron Canipe is a photographer and designer based in Mebane, North Carolina. Deeply-rooted in family and place in the North Carolina piedmont, his photographs have been exhibited throughout the Southeast and are included in collections at Telfair Museums collection, The Do Good Fund, The Archive of Documentary Arts, among others.

Nat Ward is a photographer, writer, and educator based in Queens, NY. He is the author of Big Throat (Kris Graves Projects, 2020). In 2014, Nat created A New Nothing with Ben Alper.

Sara J. Winston is an artist based in the Hudson Valley region of New York. She is the author of A Lick and a Promise (Candor Arts, 2017) and Homesick (Zatara Press, 2015). Sara is the Photography Program Coordinator at Bard College; on the faculty of the Penumbra Foundation Long Term Photobook Program; a contributor to Lenscratch and the photo-eye blog; and a member of Storm King Art Center‘s Accessibility Advisory Group (2023-2024).

On June 29, 2023, Sara's long-term project about multiple sclerosis care, Our body is a clock, was adapted and published as an op-ed in the New York Times, titled ‘My body is a clock’: The Private Life of Chronic Care.