Mary Defer: Secret Family Opening Reception

After the death of artist Mary Defer’s grandmother, Betty, Defer’s father discovered a stack of letters in Betty’s house from a man named Jack Merritt, who lived in West Virginia. Among these were several letters from Defer’s great-grandmother. After reading the letters, Defer and her father concluded that Jack was Betty’s biological father. Defer had ever heard of him before. Defer explores all of this in the new exhibition, Secret Family, using the discovery of this family secret as a springboard to explore the “slow violence” (a term coined by scholar Rob Nixon) of generational trauma. The exhibit opens tonight with a reception that takes place from 5 to 8 at Praxis Fiber Workshop.