{"id":7,"date":"2022-07-01T08:49:51","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T12:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ourworlds\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2023-04-25T18:47:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T22:47:09","slug":"portfolio","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ourworlds\/portfolio\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Molly Malone Cook was born in 1925 in San Francisco, CA and lived in a series of temporary homes as a child. She once wrote that, \u201cmy mother was an infant, my fath<\/span>er was a child, so I grew up immensely dour and wild… wild… wild\u2026\u201d [1]<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a child, she said that “I want to see every face in America,\u201d and later, Mary Oliver would speculate that she wanted to see faces in order to find \u201csomeone, somewhere, who would be recognizable, would look like her.\u201d [2]<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She began taking photographs in the late 1940s \/ early 1950s, while working as a personnel officer in Europe. For Mary Oliver, this would later be a special treat: \u201chere, in pictures taken by friends using her own camera, I saw her; a laughing, dark-haired woman, in Venice, in Paris, skiing in Switzerland, accompanied by friends as well as her ever present, well-traveled dog.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sure enough, in these photographs, Molly appears, a burgeoning photographer on her way to see not only every face in America, but every face in Europe (and perhaps a few dogs, too). Along the way, by photographing her life, she makes queer love visible \u2014 so that we, too, can find someone who looks like us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Molly, as Described by Mary<\/h1>\n
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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Mary Oliver\u2019s books, Molly has been described flying planes, driving cars (fast), and operating 190-horsepower engine boats. After Molly passed away, an obituary notes: \u201cThis was a woman who was into power.\u201d [4]<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In their joint memoir <\/span>Our World<\/span><\/i>, Mary Oliver reflects that Molly was \u201cstyle, she was an old loneliness that nothing could quite wipe away; she was vastly knowledgeable about people, about books, about the mind’s emotions and the heart’s. She lived sometimes in a black box of memories and unanswerable questions, and then would come out and frolic, be feisty, and bold.\u201d [5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Photograph of (likely) Molly, fresh from the barbershop, holding dog (named Pooh) with note on the back asking the viewer if they \u201clike what they see,” Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u201cSince I’m Sure You Don\u2019t Read Out Magazine…\u201d<\/span><\/h1>\n
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Article sent to Molly Malone Cook, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Molly Malone Cook\u2019s friend, the actor and filmmaker John Waters, sent her this article in 1999 from <\/span>Out <\/span><\/i>magazine<\/span> about Lorraine Hansberry\u2019s lesbian life. Molly is not directly mentioned in the article, though Lorraine\u2019s queer life in Greenwich Village is. On an attached sticky note, John Waters implies that he sent this to her because she wouldn\u2019t see it otherwise \u2014 what might this article, and Waters\u2019s note, suggest about the different ways queer people negotiate their relationship to queer media and culture? [6]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Excerpts from Molly’s Journal [7]<\/a> <\/h1>\n

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“3:45am, 14th of September ’87 and look who’s here! It’s me.”<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n
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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Have taken another walk, have been outside after seeing a sweet spider crawling around from inside the basement window, went outside to look for her \/him but didn’t find him\/her and didn’t try too hard, I don’t like spiders, what in hell was I doing? Loving everything? Was that it?”<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n
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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Molly Malone Cook, photographer unknown, Molly Malone Cook papers, Sophia Smith Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Further Research<\/h2>\n

To learn more, you can explore:<\/strong><\/p>\n