Bonnie Peterson

"Veil # 2"

This summer I bought a few old wedding veils at thrift shops, and integrated photographs and documents related to my marriage and divorce. The wedding veil is such a metaphorical piece of clothing. The veil covers the bride, and it is lifted at the end of the ceremony when the preacher tells the groom, "you may kiss the bride." Wedding ceremonies are often embedded with the remnants of centuries of historic male/female power positions which endure to day, and which permeate the marriage well past the point of the initial kiss.