LOW: Notes on Art and Trash

written by Jaydra Johnson

Raised in a rural Oregon town plagued by poverty, the artist and writer Jaydra Johnson excelled in school and chased upward mobility, desperate to escape the adversity that she saw as her inheritance—and the certainty that she grew up as trash. Johnson’s powerful memoir, Low—selected by acclaimed writer Maggie Nelson as the winner of Fonograf Editions’ inaugural essay collection contest—tells the redemptive story of an artist who came to embrace her lineage. In the tradition of other outcast artists who have spun refuse into art, the essays in Low reclaim trash as a precious resource and a medium for storytelling.