Though this is a tradition I’m completely unfamiliar with, DFW-based photographer Nancy Newberry’s latest project involves shooting the biggest freaking homecoming corsages you could imagine.
Artificial, shiny and virtually unknown outside of Texas, the Homecoming Mum is an elaborate corsage, exchanged between friends and lovers. They are ritually worn and subsequently immortalized, tacked to bedroom walls as trophies. Â At a time when many American high schoolers seem purposefully disengaged from the world around them, the Mum constitutes both a unique act of cultural immersion and a specific brand of folk art.
Anyway, the photographs are beautiful.
