As part of my ongoing series of conversations with photobook artists, I recently sat down with Peggy Nolan to discuss her latest monograph, Juggling is Easy with TBW Books.
“Between 1967 and 1982, I gave birth to seven children. All are still alive and not a single tattoo.” And so starts off Peggy Nolan’s latest monograph, Juggling is Easy, published by TBW Books. The first image is of a teenage girl, safety pin piercing her nostril. She challenges the camera with a cold stare, a look that mothers everywhere will recognize. But many more images follow that would normally prove elusive for the parental gaze,… make-out sessions, stolen cigarettes, bridge jumping, and mosh pits. Many of us have lived these moments, but not with our mother and her Leica in tow. With this work, Peggy Nolan has afforded us access to her specific familial drama with all its universally recognizable rights of passage. What results is not your normal heirloom scrapbook but a photobook with a searingly intimate look at a complex family and a grounded revelation of the chaos of coming of age.
