The Magnolia Code: Online Author Event with Joan Brooks Baker
The Magnolia Code
Online Author Event with Joan Brooks Baker
Friday, June 25th, 4 p.m.
Register to attend this online Zoom event at
https://tinyurl.com/MagnoliaCode
This is the story of Joan Brooks Baker. In her memoir, The Magnolia Code, a name she and her sister gave to the unwritten rules they were expected to live by, Joan Brooks Baker takes the reader on her personal journey – growing up privileged as the Yankee daughter of dyed-in-the-wool Southerners, in the post–World War II New York City – to finding where she belonged, as a photographer, living in the high desert of New Mexico. The Magnolia Code decreed that appearances are more important than truth, and the desires of men always trump those of women. Neither sat well with Baker. She might have succumbed to the promise of easier safety the Magnolia Code offered; instead, she persevered in her desire to find her own way, navigating the paradox of the diverging paths of security offered by “the code” and her own sense of who she wanted to be in the world.
Within each chapter, Baker narrates her life story from childhood, as the feisty “Cactus Pete,” to the present day. She examines relationships within her primary and extended families, some amusing, some enlightening, many defying “the code” to find role models in rebellious women, including her Aunt Billie, who challenged her to be herself regardless of the consequences. Ultimately, Baker discovers who she is and where she belongs through her work as a photographer. As she witnesses and documents women’s lives in other cultures, she sees herself reflected in their eyes. She begins to make peace with her upbringing, to reject the Magnolia Code without abandoning her family heritage, to balance the darkness with light.
Joan Brooks Baker was born in 1944, and brought up in New York City by dyed-in-the-wool Southern parents. At age eleven she was taught how to make a pinhole camera with a shoebox, which she took, along with her deep curiosity, down the city’s streets, Central Park or just simply the subway. She came to understand that she was making mental snapshots in order to create sense out of the chaos in her life.
Joan has exhibited her photographs and photographic monoprints in several galleries, mainly in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York City. The United Nations “70 women from 50 countries” exhibit featured Joan’s images of India’s female garbage workers.
Her work has been featured in Cross by Kelly Klein, Searching for Mary Magdalene: A Journey Through Art and Literature by Jane Lahr, Ms. Magazine, Men’s Vogue and Town & Country magazine, The Dead Mule of Southern Literature; Symbols of Faith, A Visual Journey to the Historic Churches of New Mexico, to name a few. Her last photographic project, and one that spanned several years, was of The Black Madonna. In her search to find the meaning of this icon’s legend, Joan began to relate the Black Madonna’s narrative to women she admired and to herself.
It was through the Black Madonna presentation that she was inspired to write her memoir, The Magnolia Code
Learn more at https://www.joanbrooksbaker.com/
PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN NEED OF ACCOMMODATIONS, CONTACT THE LIBRARY AT 505-955-6788, FIVE (5) WORKING DAYS PRIOR TO MEETING DATE.