Lineage

On a recent summer afternoon, Image’s fashion director at large, Keyla Marquez, went to Rodeo Drive with photographer Thalía Gochez on a mission: Together they were going to re-create some family photographs. The two women had just discovered that they shared a family tradition. In the 1970s and ’80s, both of their families immigrated from El Salvador to L.A., and both developed a ritual of taking photos of themselves in Beverly Hills, in front of classic cars, and sending the images back home as proof that they had “made it.” By re-staging these photos, Marquez and Gochez — two artists who’ve built successful lives in L.A. — honor their families and what they made possible.

“Lineage” is about these intergenerational conversations and how they shape us. In a special feature, legendary photographer Ellen von Unwerth is interviewed by her daughter, Rebecca Fourteau, who divulges intimate (and hilarious) memories of posing for her mother since she was a child. And in another mother-daughter tale, L.A.-based rapper Noname tells the story of growing up in her mother’s bookstore, bumping elbows with Maya Angelou, Cornel West and Tyra Banks. Today, she is carrying her family story forward with her own nationwide book club.

We all start building our lineage from childhood — with the clothes we once wore, the people we befriended, the cities we lived in. With his brand Academy, designer Chris Echevarria looks back on the American tradition of prep clothing and makes it not only more inclusive but more stylish. He cites his adolescence in New York — his school and afterschool uniforms — as his main inspiration. Because youth, in the words of pro skateboarder and artist Ed Templeton, is that “shared experience” that we carry with us through life — our younger selves always trailing behind us. It’s why the three photographs he’s shared from his archive still hit.

Throughout this issue, artists are continually having conversations with their own pasts. How, for instance, does one distill a lifetime of artmaking? This is a question that writer Catherine Lacey unpacks with another writer one generation ahead of her: the influential Chris Kraus. (Kraus’ approach? “I try not to look back.”) Over at LACMA, a major retrospective poses a similar question with another L.A. icon, Ed Ruscha. But when we asked Ruscha to share an object that encapsulated him and his art, the result was surprising and unlike anything in his show (hint: It has to do with plants). The story is a reminder of the many threads and timelines that make up each of us.

Nothing, the saying goes, is created in a vacuum. Any shirt we wear or book we read or song we hear has descended from somewhere. There’s always a deeper story to follow.

Elisa Wouk Almino
Deputy Editor

Image logo by Najeebah Al-Ghadban For The Times