Welcome to

Joie de Visual

Dear Reader,

I’m so glad that you are here. In addition to being so grateful that you are spending time exploring my site, I am keenly aware that your presence here means you are surviving the current pandemic and all the other upheaval in the world. My hope is that this site encourages you to continue surviving. Additionally, I hope it inspires you to thrive.

As you probably have surmised by now, Joie de Visual, means “the joy of the visual.” I created the term as a derivative of the popular French term joie de vivre, which means the “exuberant enjoyment of life.” Therefore, this website is dedicated to the enjoyment of discovering, musing, assessing, and understanding imagery. In so doing, one is able to evaluate the significant and mundane moments of human history with greater insight and clarity. Yes, images are that powerful, and I will use this site to continuously prove it.

My first professional voyage into visual analysis came right after my collegiate years, and it was with the Nike athletic brand. At the time, Nike needed someone to edit text and photos for an in-house platform that the organization used to evaluate one of their many campaigns geared toward consumer outreach. I was hired through a separate corporate entity that specialized in brand marketing and visual merchandising .

That 3rd party organization collaborated with Nike on special projects, and I became a remote Nike employee for what was supposed to be three months; however, the arrangement lasted four years. During the course of that time, I transitioned from a Nike employee into an employee for the partner company, but my responsibilities remained the same: I was a Brand Coordinator dedicated to assessing and evaluating words and imagery for the Nike brand.

In addition to my daily editing responsibilities, I regularly created and presented visual merchandising portfolios for the Nike brand development team that showcased the impact of Nike’s in-store presence on consumers. The experience was invaluable. I will always be grateful for the support, encouragement, and knowledge that came from the Nike team.

These days, I am a professional historian whose near the end of a PhD program, and my work focuses upon the role of imagery in shaping ideas.

As we speak, I am collaborating with the renowned Winterthur Museum in Delaware on my doctoral research. As you may know, Winterthur is known as the premier institution for American material culture and decorative arts, and the institution played an integral role in Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy’s renovation of the White House in the 1960s.

This year marks my second time collaborating with Winterthur as a Research Fellow, and I continue to gain infinite amounts of knowledge regarding American history and visual culture from the Winterthur scholars and staff. At present, I am honored to conduct research as one of their Material Culture and Critical Race Fellows.

As you know, Critical Race Theory is a lightning rod topic these days, and I will not use this note as a an opportunity to speak thoroughly on the topic. However, I will offer this well-documented caution: CRT is one of many theories used primarily in graduate programs (particularly law schools) to assess bias. It is not a systematic mechanism used to teach hatred of the American nation or to create division .

Instead, CRT asserts that systemic racism is an issue that possesses historical context, and it seeks to identify the key moments of this historical context. However, I know of no one who sees CRT as the absolute standard by which every instance of racial bias can be understood.

Additionally, it is important to note that those who subscribe to the theory do not think monolithically about bias. There are elements of the theory with which they agree; there are other components with which they disagree.

Since the theory is still new to me, I will not claim to be a CRT theorist. However, as a historian of Early America, I will say that I fervently believe and know that systemic bias within the American nation has historical roots that can be easily and unequivocally identified at the founding of our nation. One need only look at the U.S. Constitution in its original form and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments of the Constitution to begin understanding that racial hierarchy is deeply embedded within the history of America’s inception.

I can say this without harboring hatred or being unpatriotic.

On the contrary, I love my country, and I believe in it. Additionally, like many of you, I have family members who have fought in the military to protect its freedoms and its values. It is this love that allows me to appreciate the beauty of our nation while also being disappointed by the moments in which our laws and customs fail to align with our professed values.

In addition to collaborating with Winterthur, I have the privilege of working with another organization that was seminal to Mrs. Kennedy’s work as First Lady, which is the White House Historical Association. Mrs. Kennedy is the organization’s founder, and it has continued since the 1960s as a robust repository of scholarship.

The White House Historical Association is producing a published volume in collaboration with the University of Virginia Press and the SMU Center for Presidential History called Mourning the Presidents. Within the volume, I wrote the chapter about the death and mourning of President Zachary Taylor. Once Mourning the Presidents is published, I will be honored to discuss it in more detail with you.

Although, Joie de Visual is a compilation of my musings on imagery, history, and ideas, my hope is that it motivates you to assert your own voice within this vast and ever-changing world. You are important. You matter. The world can become better simply because you choose to be the best version of yourself during each day, month, and year.

Recently, I purchased a photography publication created by one of my favorite portraitist, Annie Leibovitz. The book was Leibovitz’s critically acclaimed Wonderland. As I waited for my copy of Wonderland to arrive, I read a poignant New York Times review of the book by Patricia Morrisroe. The review explained that Wonderland was a modern visual iteration of the classic novel Alice in Wonderland.

Morrisroe explains, “As Alice confronts a cast of bewildering characters, she asks, ‘Who in the world am I?’ Leibovitz, through fashion [photography], poses the same question.”

This explanation of Liebovitz work resonated with me because it reminded me that my practice of assessing imagery, which began in childhood and that continues in my personal and professional life, has always served as a mechanism for understanding myself — my preferences, my values, my interests, my ideas.

By exploring the world through aesthetics — as a kid who collected images from Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Town &Country, Life, and Time along with other mediums of art & culture —and as a college student who wrote an arts & culture column for my college newspaper— I was constructing and discovering my own “wonderland.”

This remains true today.

My hope is that Joie de Visual gives you insights into history, culture, and into the wonder that is you.

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Camille Davis