The people pictured in the “Faces of Petworth,” a recently opened photo exhibit, are happy; almost everyone in the 32 portraits is smiling.
Most of the faces are white. Most of Petworth is not.
Figures from last year’s census show that white residents make up 13 percent of the population of Petworth, a changing District neighborhood that sprawls to the north and east of the Georgia Avenue/Petworth Metro station. But they make up two-thirds of the friendly, and a few funny, faces in the exhibit.
“It’s a fair observation,” says Michael Wilkinson, a photographer in the neighborhood who took the pictures.
The exhibit was not intended as a statement about Petworth or a representation of the larger community, he said. It just seemed like a good name for the show, which is intended to raise money for the Petworth Community Market, a neighborhood farmers market.
“It really was just these are faces, and we’re in Petworth. . . . That’s about as deep as it gets,” said Wilkinson, who is white.
It’s not the presence of white people in an exhibit called “Faces of Petworth” that causes one to question the name of the show. It is that the number of white people represented in the images strung along the exposed brick walls of Domku Cafe is far more than their numbers in the neighborhood.
Of the 32 photos, people of color are represented in 10. But 2010 Census figures show that among the 19,990 residents of Petworth, the vast majority are African American. About 20 percent are Hispanic. A decade ago, 85 percent of Petworth’s residents were black.
The photos in the exhibit more accurately reflect a group of activists in Petworth who have been pushing for businesses and amenities to serve the growing population of young urban professionals who are moving into Petworth and surrounding neighborhoods. They include the owner and patrons of Domku Cafe, a neighborhood bar and eatery that offers Slavic and Scandinavian fare; the owner of Qualia Coffee, a specialty coffee shop; and organizers of the farmers market.
In May, many of those people paid $25 to attend an event to raise money to purchase an electronic benefits transfer machine, which would allow people who use food stamp debit cards to shop at the market. Wilkinson took portraits of people at that event, but after looking them over, he said it became clear that they did not reflect “the broad definition of Petworth.” So he and organizers recruited additional people of color to add to the collection of black-and-white photos.
That’s how Albert Piper ended up in the exhibit. “They asked me,” he quipped during an interview last week at the farmers market. Piper, 75, has lived in Petworth since 1986 and says the changes have been bittersweet — much about the neighborhood has improved, but some aspects of black empowerment and culture have been lost.
Although Piper often sits at one of the sidewalk tables outside Domku, he did not attend the exhibit opening last week. He is one of the few people pictured who is not smiling, but there is a hint of mirth in his eyes, his gray hair spilling out from under a black beret. Piper said he doesn’t like his photo (he also told this reporter that he doesn’t like The Washington Post).
Other faces of diversity in the exhibit include Kera Carpenter, the Korean American owner of Domku and her daughter, Zarina, in a sweet family portrait that includes their dog, Oscar; two Domku employees, Julian Flores and Reyna Donado, who are Hispanic, and three African American men who work at businesses near the site of the farmers market at Georgia Avenue and Upshur Street.
Other people pictured in the exhibit include Joseph Martin, an advisory neighborhood commissioner, playfully grimacing with his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth clenched; Joel Finkelstein, the owner of Qualia, looking like he was trying to force or stifle a smile; and Eric Frost and Paul Heithoff, the two bicycle police officers who patrol the neighborhood.
Doreen Thompson, a founder and board member of the farmers market, said she was surprised by the lack of diversity in the photos. “I expected something more reflective of the community,” she said. Still, Thompson, a native of Jamaica who lives just outside Petworth in 16th Streets Heights but is active in civic affairs in the community, praised the effort.
“I really love the energy that people are putting into the community. So even though there are misses, you still have this interesting thing of this being a gem of a community. I really like the energy, just that he took the effort, so I’d give him an A for effort.”
And what has Wilkinson learned from this experience?
“Sometimes when you name something impulsively, you’ve got some ’splainin’ to do.”
Staff researcher Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.
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