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Interview by Ellen Kanner
"The richest of human love is between a mother and daughter," says a wistful Sharon Wohlmuth. "It's more varied than any other." Her book, Mothers and Daughters, written with Carol Saline proves the power of that love, the ferocity of that bond.
As they did with Sisters, their best-selling collection of images and essays, Wohlmuth and Saline explore the profound connection between women. Mothers & Daughters features stories of celebrities like Cindy Crawford and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother Janet Leigh. Often, though, the most poignant stories are about women no one ever heard of before, like a mother with a double mastectomy whose young girls have given her hope and strength or the 96-year-old mother revered by her nine grown daughters.
"Whether they're rich, poor, famous, unknown, their stories are emotionally intense, and that's what we're going for," says Saline. In addition to being a broadcaster and senior editor at Philadelphia magazine, Saline is also the vital link between her 83-year-old mother and her thirtysomething daughter. Making Mothers & Daughters made her analyze and appreciate her own relationships with each.
Wohlmuth "came to this book as a daughter, one who doesn't have a mother anymore." Her mother died in 1991 and in the book's introduction, Wohlmuth writes of nursing her through a long illness. With 20 years' experience as staff photographer and photo editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, she is nothing if not professional. Still, at times during the interviews and as she photographed the women, she admits, "There were moments when I felt a terrible sadness. When women were fighting, I'd want to say, you know, your mother isn't going to be here for your whole life. Sometimes I'd get teary-eyed."
Tears, whether shed in sorrow or joy are trademarks of sorts for Saline and Wohlmuth. As with Sisters, the interviews and photo shoots for Mothers & Daughters became highly charged emotional sessions as women dredged up old hurts, revealed deep love. Saline recalls times when the women became "so hysterical we ran out of Kleenex. All of us were crying. And hugging. You get into people's lives," she says. "You become very close to these people even if you've only spent one afternoon with them. You develop an intense relationship because of what you share."
These times when women in a family reveal themselves to each other make Mothers & Daughters both universal and resonant. Even supermodel Cindy Crawford sheds her glamour and becomes the young daughter she is in Wohlmuth's photograph. She literally looks up to her mother. Wohlmuth's lens captures actress Jamie Lee Curtis closing her eyes and smiling in a look every daughter will recognize as an "Oh, mother."
Saline, a veteran of writing celebrity profiles, knows celebrity sells. But she also thinks of herself as a dedicated storyteller. The stories she tells here of how mothers and daughters, love, hate and interact -- often all at once -- have nothing to do with fame. "Sometimes its easier to ask questions of women who aren't famous," Saline's learned. "They're not as guarded, their answers come with a kind of innocence, a genuineness. Sometimes what you get from a glib celebrity is a better turned phrase, but not a better story."
Mothers & Daughters bears accounts of a mother reunited with her four estranged daughters, of two generations of women locked in love and conflict, of a mother and daughter making a rocky start in America after fleeing Bosnia. What makes these women share such intimate stories with two strangers? "I'm a good listener. I'm not prurient or voyeuristic. I like people," says Saline. "And I don't judge them." In such moments of fragile honesty, Wohlmuth never lets her camera become "a machine gun kind of thing, it's a sensitive appendage of me," she explains. "I want it to be benign."
Saline hopes Mothers & Daughters will give people "a deeper appreciation about their relationship with their mother or their daughter. I worried that people wouldn't like it as much as Sisters," she says. "It's not so easy, not so uniformly warm and wonderful."
"I think it's a richer book," Wohlmuth asserts. "People always say -- and I always said -- 'I don't want to turn out like my mother.' And it always happens. We're separate entities but we do have connections to our mothers. My hands look like my mother's now. Connectedness may not be in the dictionary but it's a very important word. That's what it's all about."
Ellen Kanner has interviewed many writers for this publication.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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