Marly Berger Gallery offers photo exhibit

“Kindred” Photo Exhibit, a touring display of 36 remarkable black and white portraits of Tennesseans with disabilities, will be shown in the Marly Berger Gallery, Arts Center of Cannon County in Woodbury, May 29 through July 1. The portraits are by acclaimed freelance photographer Simon R. Fulford with word-portraits by writer Ned Andrew Solomon.

The subject of one of the photographs is Hester Berry of Crossville who raised nine children despite a birth defect. “I stayed home, kept house, worked in the garden and took acre of the kids,” said Berry. “It’s been a hard go, but the Lord got me through it.”

Berry was born with one short left that came to the knee. When her children were little, she’d lay them across her lap to change their diapers, using her little foot to keep them from rolling off. She also had a unique way of disciplining. She would place a section of her children’s clothing under her chair leg to keep them near, because she couldn’t run after them.

The Tennessee Developmental Disabilities Council and the Kennedy Center created this exhibit so that Tennesseans could get to know their neighbors with disabilities in their everyday life activities.

Council members envision a future in which people with disabilities are fully included in the community and experience no barriers related to attitudes about their disabilities as they pursue their goals in education, housing, employment and all other activities of daily living.