TINA MCDUFFIE Joyce Tenneson, artist, mother, trailblazer.

TENNESON: When I photograph somebody, I want to know them.

Connect with their secrets.

GILLIAN LAUB: Her work is feminine.

It's celebrating women.

TENNESON: And I had to be fierce.

You don't survive in New York unless you're fierce.

So, I was fierce.

MCDUFFIE: "Unveiled: Joyce Tenneson and the Heroine's Journey," on Local, U.S.A. ♪ ♪ (birds twittering) ♪ ♪ TENNESON: I come here in the early morning and I've trained myself to see my, my day unfolding, walking down that pathway, and two roads diverge, so I can kind of see it out here.

And I have the choice of going... to the path of fear and anxiety, or I could take the path of... creativity, and love.

Because I have had a lifelong issue with anxiety and depression.

Many times during the day, I have to stop, take a big deep breath... (inhales deeply) ...and ask myself, which path I want to be on.

♪ ♪ ALEX TENNESON COHEN: Joyce's work... feels mystic.

It's just alchemy mixed with dreamlike vision.

KATHY RYAN: Her pictures whisper.

There are photos that want you to just pause for a second.

They're deeply concerned with beauty.

ELINOR CARUCCI: She has her voice and she's an important figure in the art world.

And she's a mother.

ALEX TENNESON COHEN: Yes, she had a kid, yes, she had a husband.

But the art was a overwhelming dimension of her life.

♪ ♪ TENNESON: When I photograph somebody...

...I want to know them, ...connect with their secrets.

I want to get there.

Where do you like to go to be peaceful?

WOMAN: Um...

In a tree.

TENNESON: In a tree.

WOMAN: Yeah.

TENNESON: I look at this tree every time I come down to the garden.

So have you been climbing trees since you were little?

WOMAN: Yeah.

TENNESON: You know what I actually see?

I see a woman's back leg.

Sometimes, I'm just working with somebody and then all of a sudden something happens between us.

I don't know how it happens, but... they, they let go.

(printer whirring) Connecting on some kind of spiritual level is really what drives me.

(camera clicks) ♪ ♪ CARUCCI: Joyce wanted to discover, to have this connection to the women she photographs.

When you think of Joyce Tennyson's work, you think of portraits of women, overwhelmingly.

Mythic, timeless portraits.

TENNESON: This is my sleeping beauty.

LAUB: She's a trailblazer, because she kind of paved the way, really wanting to understand and celebrate and communicate women's lives of all different ages.

ANN CURRY: I remember being struck by the age of some of those women.

Her photographs sparked a series that we did on national television, interviewing women of a certain age who were rarely put on television.

You can recognize a Joyce Tenneson in an ad, or in a magazine.

They've come to her because they know she has something recognizable and unusual.

CARUCCI: When you see Joyce's work, you always know it's hers.

This is the biggest asset an artist can have, when you're looking at the work and you're saying, "Oh, this is Joyce Tenneson."

LAUB: She has such a strong signature vision and style.

Her work is feminine.

It's celebrating women.

I imagine she had to be so focused on staying true to her vision when the rest of the world wasn't supporting that.

ALEX: Joyce is a pioneer.

I think she's a (muted) on some level and, you know, not without faults and not without, you know, whatever baggage comes with being a bad(muted).

I certainly understood from a very early age that Joyce was not like other mothers.

RUBY TENNESON COHEN: She really worked hard to make a name for herself, and she wanted my dad to have a better life than she did.

But in the end, though, hiding a secret can cause more pain than facing it.

I don't know exactly how to express it, but there was something that just sort of... ...wasn't totally right.

(doorbell rings) It's just more like... ...this thing that... you know, it just... it didn't need to be that way.

TENNESON: The worst moment in my whole life was hurting Alex so much.

RUBY: My dad is her only child, so it was hard for him to uncover the truth.

I hope she can forgive herself.

TENNESON: I have always been fascinated by the female psyche.

♪ ♪ Early on, I don't think a lot of critics really liked my work.

They felt it was too female.

I wasn't trying to be female.

It was who I was, and I was presenting my inner life.

There was part of me that would not be put down.

So I started doing self-portraits.

And I think, in retrospect, it was a way of getting to know myself.

I wanted to show the desperation I felt.

In my early 20s, I read the book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

It was about the archetypal journey of basically, men, and how they found who they were.

I remember putting the book down, and I'm like, "This is me.

I'm that person, only I'm a woman."

That guided me-- I felt like I want to go out into the bigger world, discovering who I could be.

I was truly driven to go out every day and confront myself.

Put my camera on a tripod, have the timer on, and run in front of it.

♪ ♪ I think it was a kind of internal journey, going to psychological destinations.

VICKI GOLDBERG: To do a series on Joyce's part has a lot to do with her sense of looking deeper and deeper.

She's an explorer in many ways, both of people and of her own capacities.

TENNESON: This is something that I haven't seen for a long time.

I feel for this younger self.

I see someone who was so insecure and... ...alone.

♪ ♪ People encouraged me to publish a book of my self-portraits.

And I thought, "It's bigger than me."

It was the '70s.

ARCHIVAL: Leading spokeswoman of the Women's Lib Movement... (crowd chanting) TENNESON: It was a huge upheaval for women.

And I had this idea.

Since I knew other women were doing self-portraits, why don't I edit an anthology?

I put out some press releases in different photo magazines.

I got 4,000 entries.

♪ ♪ GOLDBERG: Nobody had looked at self-portraits of women photographers.

They hadn't looked much at portraits of any sort by women.

TENNESON: I had to really smile when I opened the box that included this photo by Karen Plassour in a closet.

The photo reminded her of the ways women often kept their feelings hidden.

One woman had stitched herself in a sheet.

We were sort of told there were little boxes that we could fit into.

All of a sudden, everything changed.

It really rocked their world because they thought, "Okay, I made a decision that made my parents happy."

But is that really who I am?"

And I was caught in the middle of that.

GOLDBERG: I think after having seen how women were treated, she began to think of it as a cause.

♪ ♪ It was a very important endeavor.

Women were not being shown.

And Joyce put them out before the public across America.

TENNESON: So I met with nine publishers, all of whom said it wouldn't have an audience.

On the tenth one, found a publisher who believed in it, and guess what?

It sold out in two weeks.

In/Sights, Self-Portraits by Women, was the first photographic book of self-portraits by women that was ever done.

I loved doing it.

And I also found my second love; making books.

I loved having this vision of my next book and then the challenge to make something that I've never seen before.

DAVID TURNER: Most people have one-hit wonders.

But Joyce had so many hits through her entire career.

TENNESON: Ooh, this is powerful.

I like this.

Beautiful.

TURNER: And I think the driving force behind is center yourself.

Find your voice.

Be an author-- what do you have to say about this subject in front of you?

WOMAN: I'm just wiggling.

(laughing) TENNESON: I love that.

Yes, I like that.

Turn more towards me.

I love it.

Perfect.

Ooh, tough.

Oh, that I love.

I think I might be intimidated if I met you and I saw you standing against the wall like that.

Intimidation can be good.

It's powerful.

WOMAN: I don't think anyone's ever called me "intimidating."

TENNESON: Well, that picture.

What was it like photographing yourself?

Oh my-- I could never do that, because then it's like, like, how do you be genuine with yourself?

Well, it's a kind of a training.

This is a self-portrait that I did in my 50s.

I see somebody so different than I am now.

When I look at that portrait, I see a fierce woman, You know?

And I had to be fierce; you don't survive in New York unless you're fierce.

So I...

I was fierce.

♪ ♪ The title Light Warriors expressed my respect for the role women had played throughout history.

Women have always been a force to take the lead in the family, in the communities, to bring a spiritual life and the light into the world.

And to make sure that we weren't just a materialistic culture.

♪ ♪ When you were talking about you in New York... TENNESON: Yes.

...and this, this, what you did over there.

TENNESON: Yes.

Yes.

Yes, that I had to be strong.

With the change happening, that's what we as women want to be.

The power of light.

We want to be our own light, and you are your own light.

TENNESON: Wow, watch out, here she comes.

One of the reasons I have loved doing portraits for 60 years is I see so much when they walk in that they don't know I'm looking at.

You see everything about them.

The things that I photograph feel so autobiographical to me because they are part of my own journey.

This is the most autobiographical photo maybe that I've ever done.

Even though I'm not in this picture, It really is a photograph, metaphorically, of me, a supplicant, sort of, looking up at an older man, a father figure, that has his back turned.

My father was not self-realized himself, and he really was very difficult on a day-to-day level.

And... never really making you feel that you might be enough.

There was always something you could improve.

And that if you did one little thing... ...there was no unconditional love, you were out.

So we were definitely on our guard.

That experience that was, I guess, semi-traumatic for her, just the, you know, growing up in that household that didn't share a lot of love.

And, um... ...so she learned to be who she is on some level by surviving that experience and making it through.

And she obviously, probably, that probably shapes a lot of her, the way she goes about life now.

Just being able to, you know, take a situation that may not be optimal and get through it and survive and move on.

TENNESON: Although I didn't have a happy childhood, I have to thank that experience for opening me up to the world of mystery and rituals.

I grew up on the grounds of a convent, because my parents both worked for the nuns.

It really was, in many ways, a surreal experience.

Back then, the nuns wore these amazing habits.

With the beads that made a noise when they walked down the hallways.

And the universe that I saw and that I delighted in had a spiritual dimension.

We were always so curious about what went on behind those closed doors.

And because we were the only kids on the grounds of this convent, we were always enlisted to be in all of their pageants.

The three Tenneson sisters were always angels.

My mother, she'd say over and over again, "Joyce, now don't get too big for your britches now."

So I didn't mention my dreams in the house.

I kept it all silent.

I always wanted to stretch my wings and go away.

I was one of the poorest kids in a wealthy town, and when it snowed, the trees, you know, those spruce trees, they would have the, you know, the heavy weight on them.

And I would just walk through it and I would just liberate all those trees with the weight.

And I remember once, lying down, having my arms out in the snow, and just looking up at the sky and screaming, "Joyce Tenneson!

I am Joyce Tenneson!"

This is such a deep memory of mine.

I learned that my school had a scholarship to go to France.

I wanted to learn how to speak French fluently, and I wanted that larger experience.

So I took the bus to school and I would sit next to the girl who had been selected the year before to go to France.

And I talked to her about her experience, so I filled out the application.

And asked my mom to sign it, and not being mean-spirited, she just said, "Joyce, what, I don't get this.

Why are you applying for this "when there are kids from many other families "whose parents teach at M.I.T.

or Harvard, and-and their kids are also applying?"

So I just, you know, smiled and just went back to my bedroom and signed-- forged her name, basically, and turned in my application.

And she didn't know until I was selected.

So I think that was my biggest maverick statement early on.

Going to France for that year was the biggest turning point in my life.

I immediately fell in love with the fact that the French culture champions art and feminine beauty.

And the statuary of nude angels and what have you on their bridges... ...honestly, all my life was feeling that I was going to speak in my own voice and keep growing.

You know, I've seen how my work has evolved in the last decade, and I don't know what will happen in the next decade, but I suspect it will mirror my life.

♪ ♪ When I got married, my family, they thought, "Oh, Joyce is going to marry a doctor.

Everything's going to be good."

But I didn't want to be a housewife.

I did not want to be a lady who lunches.

But I really wanted to have a child, and that was part of my journey, I think.

And I can honestly say the best thing I've ever done in my life is to have my son, Alex.

ALEX: I certainly remember being photographed vividly as a child.

It was all I knew, Joyce being a photographer and shooting me.

And Joyce was proud of me, of course, and she was proud of the work and the images of me.

And so I was happy to support Joyce.

TENNESON: This was my favorite ever photo of Alex that I took.

Looks to be about seven years old.

He was my favorite subject.

This is my best model right here.

This is the big A. I guess, you told me last week that your friends think this house is pretty neat.

ALEX: They think this swing is the neatest.

TENNESON: Why do you think they like the swing so much?

ALEX: Well, they just like to swing in it.

I think Alexander has been my greatest... greatest look into real beauty.

ALEX: She was a pure artist.

You have a blind passion that you just can't balance with anything else.

It's, it's everything.

And you will do everything to... be successful and to continue that passion.

Everybody sort of was on their own, on a certain level.

And, you know, and she could sort of just keep going to the next level, to the next level.

(camera whirring, birds twittering) As Joyce was gaining popularity and being a photographer, being an artist, it soon became clear that she needed to move out of D.C. TENNESON: I felt that part of me was dying in Washington.

ALEX: It was a big choice to make.

To move out of the house for whatever reason.

I have kids now, and I wouldn't do it.

As a parent, I wouldn't do it.

TENNESON: I wrote in my journal.

I can remember it so clearly.

I want to go to New York.

I wanted to bring my voice to a larger audience.

RYAN: It was very tough for Joyce to break through in the '80s, when there were far fewer women photographers.

She just marched to her own beat from day one.

She just recognized early that men always got the heroic treatment.

They were always the one that got the attention.

And she knew that she had that power within her also.

I was like a racehorse that had been let out of the gate.

CURRY: I think that what she was driven by was not just being a photographer.

It was also about capturing, and in her own way, giving voice to women.

All my models were people that I had met, you know, on the subway or waiting in line at the bank or at the art store.

These women are not ordinary models.

I think sometimes she picked them off the street.

She was asking for them to reveal something of themselves, but she was really revealing herself.

TENNESON: There would be something about them, something about probably the eye connection, some kind of radiance that made me curious.

What I see as beauty.

GOLDBERG: Perhaps the sitter is just a conduit for Joyce's looking and seeking herself.

TENNESON: When I met Suzanne, I felt that I had found my younger self.

I felt like she had a powerful psychological presence.

RYAN: Artists throughout history have muses.

Because there was something in that person's look that allowed the artist to layer on them their own concerns, investigations.

TENNESON: She was some kind of an alter ego, and we connected effortlessly.

I remember she was sitting there, like, in this chair.

And I had her move her head ever so slightly.

And then I'm like, "Suzanne, close your eyes, please."

And I would close my eyes and I would just make that connection.

And when I felt it, I just hit the shutter.

A couple months later, American Photographer magazine would put that image on the cover, and it had a huge effect on my career.

♪ ♪ RYAN: Joyce's work stood out because she had a very distinct look to her portraiture.

That slightly heightened, over-lit quality that gave the pictures an intimate look.

Joyce was a pioneer.

She was making her way as a photographer when it was tougher.

CARUCCI: I think one contribution of Joyce and of women that worked in the '70s and '80s is to continue to not say, "I'm giving up.

"This is too hard.

"The art world is not open to women.

The art world is not open to mothers."

No, and to continue working and creating and exhibiting and publishing when it is harder for you.

She paved the way for other female photographers.

ALEX: She made the choice to go to Manhattan and take a gamble, I guess.

Not only professionally, but in terms of her family life as well.

TENNESON: Gosh, you look so innocent.

♪ ♪ ALEX: I like this one.

TENNESON: This was in D.C. ALEX: Mm-hm.

I think this might have been a birthday party... ALEX: Birthday party, yeah.

TENNESON: Because I see another child's head.

In the back.

TENNESON: Yeah, right.

ALEX: Yeah.

Maybe that was the one that kicked off these sort of, uh, portraits together that we did every decade or so.

TENNESON: Every few years.

Looking back, I feel very moved looking at this picture.

We were so different back then.

I mean...

I had not permanently moved to New York City, and I still have such an, an open face.

ALEX: Well, we're both more pure in this era.

TENNESON: The thing that I was always concerned about was not doing something that would be detrimental to Alex's well-being.

(car chiming) (shuts door, chiming stops) (engine starts) So I took my time to move permanently to New York City.

I commuted Monday through Friday for several years.

♪ ♪ ALEX: Joyce was in Manhattan, pseudo-separated from my father and, sort of, had an alter life up there.

Had her own apartment, and... you know, that had some effect on me, obviously.

LAUB: There's always a conflict of being true to your art and really wanting to be the full artist and then feeling like you're a bad mom.

Like, there's just constant guilt.

You never feel like you're doing anything well.

Like, you always feel like you're failing as a mom when you're an artist.

TENNESON: I tried to give Alex a good life, but I was really so depressed with what I saw as a limiting environment.

I had to really launch myself into another life.

LAUB: I think it's unfair that women can't fully live their potential in their creative lives without being judged as a parent.

TENNESON: His eyes are so penetrating.

A lot like yours, is what I say, right?

Do people ever tell you that?

I found some pictures of you when you were younger.

Yay... (Joyce chuckles) There you are with your mom and dad.

RUBY: My grandma struggled in society as a female artist.

There's a lot of people telling her she couldn't do what she was doing.

TENNESON: Now this was Alex and I at an opening at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

He hasn't let me forget that I dressed him like an angel, though.

(laughs) RUBY: Anything she did, people would criticize.

Like, you know, she's not spending enough time with her son because she's, like, too focused on her work.

TENNESON: These were other pictures of Alex, very dreamy.

I imagine that she had to be really tough to make her work, keep making her work.

TENNESON: The light was so beautiful.

RUBY: Yeah.

LAUB: That's what makes it interesting.

Her work is so... gentle and maybe she imagined this world in which she didn't have to be so tough.

♪ ♪ TENNESON: This one I love of you, because it's...

I see inside of you.

RUBY: Mm-hmm.

TENNESON: I see the Ruby I know now.

RUBY: When I was applying to schools, I wrote this essay.

I think the question was, "What is something in your life that has impacted your outlook?"

So I wrote it about the situation, because I feel like it really, it changed me.

And it opened my eyes and kind of made me perceive myself and my life in a different way.

"My grandma's studio is like a magical room.

"Books and photographs occupy every wall and surface, "glistening when the light hits just right.

"I spin around in her swivel office chair "while I watch her sort through cabinets "of neatly stacked prints.

"She holds up a photo and murmurs, "'What about this one for the cover?'

"I nod in approval, "doing another spin in my chair.

"In my eight-year-old eyes, my grandmother is everything I aspire to be."

TENNESON: This is me in my swing that was made out of feathers and Alex used to love to swing in there with his cats.

(Ruby giggles) ♪ ♪ RUBY: My grandmother's perfect image shattered when she was forced to reveal a decades-long secret.

♪ ♪ When she was newly married to my grandfather, she had an affair with another man.

That man was my dad's biological father.

And she hid the truth for 45 years.

♪ ♪ TENNESON: The light is pretty in here, right, Rubes?

(Ruby chuckles) I'm a kisser, right?

So I'm hoping to go to Paris, I guess, in June when they get out of school for ten days, and you're supposed to come with us.

ALEX: Okay.

TENNESON: I'm gonna need help going up and down those hills.

(rain pattering) ALEX: I've been in the dark my whole life.

Joyce knew, and my father knew, but I... was not told.

♪ ♪ I just did a DNA test just like everybody does these days, just for fun, for Christmas.

It was too... too unbelievable to really think that maybe my father wasn't my father, so it took me a while to sort of get my head around, "Hey, this is really a possibility."

And I confronted Joyce, and she... ...confessed, effectively.

Everybody's entitled to know who their parent is, their biological parent.

It was a bad choice, and my father made the same bad choice.

They made a bad decision as parents, but Joyce is the only one around now, so she's going to be the one that's going to bear the blame.

RUBY: My dad felt really confused.

For so long, he thought that he was this one person, and now he was kind of trying to figure out who he truly was.

So we're just going to look at the lens.

How about this?

Just natural.

TENNESON: I never really experienced unconditional love before I had Alex.

When this whole thing exploded, I felt his unconditional love for me go away.

(stammering): I felt it.

And anger at me.

I don't think it's anger really so much, I mean...

It's disappointment.

It's, uh... it's... yeah, it's disappointment.

Um... ...sadness.

(camera flash) Perfect!

It was easy for me to photograph him when he was young, because, well, you know, he was...

I didn't have a choice.

(laughs) You got paid.

You... Perhaps, later on.

He was a tough bargainer, and I think, about age ten, the ba-- the, you know, he really didn't like it anymore.

So... That's good, you're doing good, honey.

(laughs) Oh, this is-- all right, so I'm just gonna have you roll like this, this is great.

Just roll there, and look right here.

WOMAN: Beautiful.

Okay.

Ready?

- Yeah.

(camera flash) That's a blast, isn't it?

Thanks, that was... ALEX: Of course.

That was amazing.

ALEX: We'll see.

TENNESON: Thanks, Alex.

The way you are with your four kids is so hands-on, and you seem to love it so much.

And I...

I look, I watch, and I admire you.

And thought you were... ALEX: Thanks.

Thanks.

TENNESON: ...you know, perfect.

But this is a whole new dimension, and... Well, living in Maine makes it easier to be present and around.

TENNESON: This is a fabulous, strong portrait.

What do you think, Alex?

I think I look a little sad.

TENNESON: You, you do look a little sad, but that's part of life, too.

Moments like that-- I think you look intense.

I would use the word "intense."

RUBY: My grandmother chose to carry on her life as though the affair had never happened.

I wasn't mad at her for having an affair.

I was mad at her for not telling the truth.

But I feel really grateful that it was uncovered, although it was really hard for my grandma to have to face that mistake with all these new people knowing about it.

TENNESON: My husband and I tried for years to conceive.

We went to the fertility clinic, and it seemed like there was a problem with me.

The whole jolt of realizing that I wasn't ever going to be able to conceive sent me into a deep depression.

And went into some very tense therapy about being so depressed.

And then I met this man.

30-some-odd years older than me, a psychiatrist on the Georgetown faculty.

He said he had been wanting to have a part of his practice that would be art therapy.

We could collaborate.

And there you go.

I was pregnant within a month, having had tried for years.

I told my husband honestly what had happened, and he said, "Do you want to marry this man?"

And I said, "No."

"Well, are you in love with him?"

"No."

"Well, there's no problem, we wanted to have a baby.

Here it is, and let's just not speak about it again."

And he did not talk about it anymore.

Reading some of my journals, which I've kept since my early 20s, I came across a quote that said, "I never thought of choosing "happiness in my life.

The only thing I ever really wanted was to move forward."

♪ ♪ Coming to Maine, where I had my family, was a great decision.

Every day, it's different here.

Sometimes there's fog.

Sometimes there's dark clouds.

But there's always this magic white light that descends.

I was walking down the pathway, and I found this little piece of birch.

Now it's dried more, but I was like, "Oh my God."

To me, this is, like, better than any jewel.

♪ ♪ When I was in New York, it never crossed my mind that I could just be happy.

I was working so hard that I put my soul in the closet for most of those years.

All of a sudden, I felt really fearful.

Who am I going to be?

♪ ♪ I was in my 50s at that time.

The words "over the hill" or "gone to seed" were kinds of expressions used to describe women over 65.

And I was worried about that, and I was wondering if I could continue to compete in the world.

So I decided to photograph women 65 to 100.

And that's how Wise Women happened.

♪ ♪ I had curiosity about not just photographing these women, but interviewing them.

♪ ♪ I love probing somebody to connect with them.

I believe that they enjoy that somebody is that interested to know.

I would say right away, so we've all had losses in our life.

Um, I know...

...I have had many losses, and I might mention all sorts of relationships that... that, you know, fell short of what I had hoped for.

I'd ask them, "Is there some particular loss that really changed your life?"

They were dying to tell me.

I would say then, "So what did you learn from that?

"What did you... "...is there something that you can share with me that you learned from that?"

And they would.

This picture of Mimi Weddell in her 90s, I said, "Mimi, you know, "I noticed that your neck is so beautiful "and sort of bird-like.

"Would you allow me to show, to take a photograph showing this... this beauty?"

And she was so at ease with herself and her body and-and showing the world who she was.

I lost my fear of getting older.

Being a woman, we always feel, somehow, that we really aren't enough.

And I think it's the most awful burden to carry all your life.

This book was such a liberation for me.

It allowed me to tell myself, "You are enough."

Every book I do, every show I have afterwards, you know, I go into this kind of fallow period, and I think I'll never have another project.

After a year in Maine, not really feeling inspired to do a new project, I was starting to get worried.

And one morning I woke up and the fog is rolling in, and my birch trees right outside my window are completely shrouded, and I'm like, "Joyce, how stupid have you been?"

That's it!

The fog creates a backdrop and isolates its subject, just like the backdrops I used in my portraits of people.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ RUBY: "My grandma is still that same "talented, mesmerizing, "smart and elegant woman that I love and I admire.

"But she is not perfect.

♪ ♪ "I have come to realize that errors in judgement "are really what make us human.

We all make them."

♪ ♪ ALEX: The time helps soften things on some level.

Obviously, I still have some... some issues, but, you know, it doesn't stop us from having a relationship.

Just knowing the truth is very positive.

TENNESON: All my life, all I wanted to do is to protect Alex and give him the life that I never really had.

♪ ♪ I do feel some of tha unconditional love coming back.

I don't feel it fully.

ALEX: Things are still in a process, I guess.

It is what it is, more and more.

♪ ♪ RUBY: I hope that she can find peace in this situation and-and move forward.

We all forgive her and we all love her.

Thinking about, like, us when I was a kid, (voice breaking): like, before it all happened.

And I don't know, she made my childhood really magical.

(soft chuckle) ALEX: She had no other, no other way to live her life other than to be that artist.

CARUCCI: She did the only thing you can do as an artist.

To do the work that you want to make, to put your soul and voice and feelings into your art.

RYAN: Joyce had the confidence it takes to be an artist.

It takes deep wells of confidence.

Where she got that confidence, I don't know, but I'm glad she has it.

LAUB: Just to spend a whole career focusing on women before it was cool or trendy, to tell women stories, to show women of all different ages.

People now have Joyce to thank for that.

♪ ♪ TENNESON: In going for your dreams, you are actually using something you were born with that you bring to light.

It's like giving birth to your own inner potential.

And that's a powerful thing.

Honestly, I think I would have rather died than not pursue who I felt was my deeper self that I wanted to bring out in my work.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪