Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Photographic redemption
Photo exhibit shows the spirit of people, battling an invisible war every day
The photograph shows a woman submerged almost to her shoulders in a lake. The clouds above her and the trees behind are reflected in the rippling water. She is perfectly centered in the middle of the picture.
Her face is almost completely obscured by a silver Spartan helmet, but her left eye is visible and looks directly at you.
It’s a curious and fascinating image.
Just as curious and fascinating is that to the right of the framed, 40 x 49-inch photo, beneath the little card with its title, are two pages of text.
“For many years I struggled as a victim,” it begins. The woman in the picture is telling her story — addiction, depression, homelessness, cancer, endurance, hope.
Her name is Stephanie Odom, and the photograph is called Tread Carefully. It was taken by Conway photographer Don Byram and became the inspiration for a series called “Everyday a Warrior,” which is on display at Argenta Gallery in downtown North Little Rock.
The exhibit is made up of 25 photos of women, one man and a man who identifies as a woman who not only posed for Byram but shared their stories. They range in age from 14-50. They are business owners and teachers, students and parents and their narratives are filled with abuse, mental illness, disease, addiction and loss.
Their narratives are also filled with hope, promise, determination and strength.
★★★
Byram and Odom are friends and were about to set out on a run a little over a year ago at Beaver Fork Lake in Conway when she told him she was checking herself into a rehabilitation facility for drug and alcohol abuse. “So we decided that instead of jogging, we would jump in the lake and do a photoshoot,” says the 60-year-old Byram at Argenta Gallery last month among several of the “Everyday a Warrior” framed pictures.
Byram saw in Odom’s story similar things he’d heard from other people he knew, mostly women.
“We’re talking about a lot of addiction issues, abuse issues, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, medical issues,” he says. “The subject matter is people who have continually overcome, on a daily basis, issues that have been thrown at them, issues they have no control over and some issues that they do.”
Their struggles, he says, are like a hand of poker. “Some cards you picked up on your own, and some cards you were dealt. But you’ve got
to play the hand you hold.”
Another thing that runs through his pictures is the helmet.
Back on that day when he and Odom jumped in the lake, Byram just happened to have his Spartan helmet handy because one never knows when one might need a cool prop for a photo. The helmet would end up in all of the photographs in the series, a symbol of the subject’s inner warrior.
There are three Tonya Cockmans in the photo Into the Light.
The first is a peaceful figure standing on a platform in an abandoned warehouse off Ninth Street in Little Rock. She holds the helmet and is draped in long, flowing white sheer fabric that stretches to the ground. On the ground below are two other images of her, one in yellow and one dressed in black, looking up. The trio represent Cockman’s often tumultuous journey.
Cockman, 46, owns Wild Roots Salon in Little Rock. After years in a vicious cycle of drug abuse and scrapes with the law, she’s been clean for over a decade. Part of her recovery is helping other women get sober, and she wanted to participate in the photo series to help convey her experience.
“There are a lot of women who don’t share what they’ve been through because of shame,” she says at the gallery last month. “Don told me about doing these photos and that the women participating would be telling their stories — these are their voices. I thought that was really powerful.”
The composition of Into the Light was the result of conversations between Cockman and Byram.
Getting to know and trust each other was a crucial part of the process with all of the models, he says.
“We sit down, and we speak to each other because most of these people, I don’t know. We have a conversation and get comfortable with each other. Part of that is me shutting up and really listening, and part of that is them understanding that this is all very collaborative. For each person, somewhere in our conversation, they will say something that will click, and that’s the hook that I need.”
Samantha Copeland of Little Rock told Byram that she’d always felt a sense of abandonment, and they ended up shooting in an abandoned house in Greenbrier. The resulting photo, Rise Above, shows Copeland suspended over an old bathtub in the dilapidated home. The helmet rests on the windowsill and an image of Copeland also appears in a broken TV on the floor.
“I’d never done anything like that before, but I was really open to it and it felt really comfortable,” Copeland says. “It was empowering for me.”
Copeland, 32, has been sober for nine months and heard about the project from a fellow recovering addict.
“I looked at what he was doing and fell in love with it and wanted to be a part of it,” she says.
Her story runs over three pages.
“I’m still learning a lot about myself,” she says while standing near the picture at the gallery. “Writing my story and having to relive it to stay sober and think about who I really am is important. It was cool to see my progress as I was writing.”
Brandie Maldonado is a photographer and has modeled for Byram in the past.
She was 10 years old in 1978 when she, her mother and two younger brothers were swept away in a flood in Saline County. Only she and her mother were saved.
It was the first of several deaths of those close to her over the years.
The project, she says, “is a great outlet for those of us who have those deep, dark things that we don’t talk about that we sometimes need to. If us coming forward with our stories can help anyone, then it’s worth it.”
I Was Left is the title of her photograph. It shows her standing on a stump in the woods behind Byram’s home. She wears the helmet and her arms are outstretched as she tosses sand, which looks like an angel’s wings as it falls back to the ground.
“I love my photo,” she says at the gallery. “But I love everyone else’s equally. I can’t wait to read the stories. Don is amazing. Besides this work, he does incredible landscape and nature photos.”
The “Warrior” photos are printed on canvas, which gives them an almost painterly feel, and Byram uses Photoshop to manipulate the images. Most are in color, though there is one black and white.
Byram is an Arkansas native and a retired Walmart store manager. He once owned a frame shop in Commerce, Ga., before moving back to Conway in 2016 to care for his ailing mother, who passed away last year. He presents his photos in vintage frames that vary in size and material that he has scrounged up at flea markets and estate sales.
“I love antique and vintage frames, and I love getting them back in circulation,” he says. “And I sometimes work from the outside in, artistically, so I’ll have a frame and make a picture to go in it.”
While the exhibit will close in North Little Rock on Thursday, it will be shown at the Art Collective Gallery in Rogers beginning Oct. 18 and at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Conway in January.
The images are for sale, and Byram is sharing half of the proceeds with the models.
Does he see himself expanding beyond the original 25 subjects?
“Yeah, I do,” he says. “I had people who wanted to be in this show. I have more people than I can get to. It feels like there is a real sense of purpose and a mission here. I would love to expand on that and let it grow.”