Susan Worsham and the Ladies of Richmond on NPR's Picture Show

Richmond, VA photographer Susan Worsham and images from her Some Fox Trails in Virginia portfolio make up the fifth and final entry in this week's series of images from the South on NPR's Picture Show blog.

Worsham earned this recognition because she is one of the 100 Superstar Southern artists recently designated by Oxford American Magazine.

Worsham's story is one of  leaving and returning and, in her words, "photograph[ing]  the landscape of my childhood, but through the lens of my adult self"

The images here are especially of  Worsham's neighbor, Margaret Daniel, Worsham's oldest neighbor on Bostwick Lane, and  one of Worsham's muses, "one of the last threads" remaining from her childhood.

In her entry on the NPR blog, Worsham meditates on he work as an artist, especially a Southern artist,  and, being Southern, she tells a story:

" I can remember one particular time when I visited Margaret. I looked out of her large picture window and saw what looked like a nest or hammock of small red berries draped between the winter trees.

"I asked Margaret what it was. She answered, "Why, that's bittersweet. Bittersweet on Bostwick Lane."

"Maybe that is what it means to me to be a Southern artist. Putting sugar in my tea to make it go down easier. Maybe not hiding the real taste, but being able to taste both the bitter and the sweet"

Living in the space between the bitter and the sweet, living creatively in the tension between the bitter and the sweet -- that's life, creative life in the South.

Worsham truly deserves her growing reputation as one of the South's best young artists. She's a Southern Photographer We've Been Watching Out For for a long time, and we are glad to see her getting this national recognition from NPR.