06/26/2025
Our Jennifer was photographed by Tom Atwood for his project Kings and Queens and their Castles, which is an intimate look at LGBTQ lives, ranging from famous actors to trans artists to drag queens and other iconoclasts. Kings and Queens and their Castles offers a glimpse into the homes of prominent members of the LGBTQ community. Modern day tableaux vivants, the images portray whimsical, intimate moments of daily life that shift between the pictorial and the theatrical. This book and exhibit from photographer Tom Atwood captures American celebrities and other icons of the LGBTQ community in their most intimate spaces—their homes. Kings and Queens in Their Castles has been featured in the New York Times, LA Times, The New Yorker, and Elle. Among the luminaries depicted in Tom’s photos for this project are the following:
* Jennifer Medway - Internationally renowned spiritual leader and practitioner
* Leslie Jordan – Emmy-winning actor from Will & Grace, The Help, Sordid Lives, Boston Legal, Newhart
* Billy Porter – Actor from Pose and Tony-winning actor from Kinky Boots, Jesus Christ Superstar
* George Takei – Actor from Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Star Wars, Heroes
* Christian Siriano – Project Runway winner
* Alan Cu***ng – Tony-winning actor from Hamlet, Macbeth, Cabaret
* Jonathan Adler – Designer and homeware magnate & partner Simon Doonan – Judge on Making It, Television personality, and Barneys NY creative director
* John Waters – Director of Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray, Pe**er, Serial Mom
* Carson Kressley – Judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race and Bravo and OWN television host
* Meredith Baxter – Actress from Family Ties, All the President's Men, Glee, Family
* Don Lemon – CNN Anchor
* Rufus Wainwright – Award-winning singer and songwriter
* Ari Shapiro – Co-host of NPR's All Things Considered
* Anthony Rapp – Actor from Rent, Dazed and Confused, Psych, The X-Files, A Beautiful Mind
* Heather Matarazzo – Actress from The Princess Diaries, Sisters, ER, Strangers with Candy
* Greg Louganis – Olympic diver and gold medal winner
* Alison Bechdel – Cartoonist, MacArthur Genius Grant winner and author of Fun Home
* Joel Schumacher – Director of Phantom of the Opera, Batman & Robin, St. Elmo’s Fire
* Michael Cunningham – Pulitzer-winning author of The Hours, which was made into an academy award winning film starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore
* Michael Urie – Actor from Ugly Betty, The Good Wife, Partners, Modern Family
* George Kotsiopoulos – Co-host of Fashion Police and correspondent for MSNBC
* John Berendt – Author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The City of Falling Angels
* John Ashbery – Pulitzer-winning Poet Laureate of New York
* Terrence McNally – Tony and Emmy-winning writer and playwright
* Bruce Vilanch – Emmy-winning celebrity from Hollywood Squares
* Kate Clinton – Comedian and actress from The L Word
* Tommy Tune – Ten time Tony-winning performer and National Medal of Arts winner
* Mark Takano – US Congressman
* Jim McGreevey – Former New Jersey Governor
* Christine Vachon – Producer of Still Alice, Boys Don't Cry, Far from Heaven, I Shot Andy Warhol
* Richard Howard – Pulitzer-winning poet
* John Corigliano – Grammy and Pulitzer-winning composer
* Dan Savage – Columnist and media pundit
* Michael Musto – Village Voice columnist and television personality
* Barney Frank – Former US Congressman and chair of Financial Services Committee
* Randal Kleiser – Director of Grease, Grandview U.S.A., Big Top Pee-wee, The Blue Lagoon
* Mother Flawless Sabrina – Drag Queen and star of The Queen
* Frank Marino – Longest running headliner on the Strip, dubbed “Ms. Las Vegas.”
* Doug Spearman – Actor from Charmed, Star Trek Voyager, Noah’s Arc, Girlfriends with Mark Anthony Samuel (friend) – Actor from Imperfect Sky, Avenged, Parenthood
* Ria Pell – Chef from Top Chef and winner of Chopped
Jennifer Medway is a celebrity spellcaster, an energetic powerhouse, scholar, and generational spiritualist with ancestral roots in both Los Angeles and Louisiana. Jennifer descends from generations of Angelenos raised in Lynwood, CA, which is next to Compton. Jennifer began practicing the occult and esoteric arts at a tender young age when her mother gave her a tarot deck. Rootwork and hoodoo run in Jennifer’s family in Louisiana. Her mother’s cousin, Maybelline, was a professional rootworker whom locals called The Swamp Witch. Jennifer’s maternal great-grandmother was a professional photographer and predictive Vedic astrologer. She was also a devotee of Paramahansa Yogananda and photographed him. Jennifer carries on her family tradition and works as a rootworker, Sancista, Yaya Nkisi Malongo, witch, ceremonial magician, astrologer, and Reiki Master at her company Serpentine Spiritual Arts. Jennifer is also an aborisha who received her elekes, guerreros, ikofa, apetebi ceremony, hand of Ifa (isefa), and other orisha. She has celebrity, award-winning clients (including New York Times #1 bestselling novelists, Platinum musicians, actors, poets, models, artists, journalists, scientists, academics, and winners of RuPaul’s Drag Race) and international clients as far as South America, Europe, Africa, Canada, Australia, and Thailand. She trained with some of the top occult professionals internationally and is a member of Ordo Templi Orientis. Jennifer presented Working with Santa Muerte during the Dr. Daisy L. Machado lecture at Vanderbilt University. She is researching the occult sciences and folklore while a master’s candidate. Jennifer attended Stanford, UCLA, and UC Berkeley, where she earned her BA in English. She published poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction in several journals, including Gertrude, Cornell’s Rainy Day, and Goddess and the Moon Metaphysical Journal. Jennifer is also a successful equestrian with many championships, and her students won five state championships.
Jennifer presented at Starwood, Pantheacon, WitchCon, Gather the Witches, Kaleidoscope Gathering, Paganicon, Sirius Rising, DragonFest, WitchsFest, The Witches Gathering, Pagan Unity Festival, Los Angeles Pagan Pride, Philadelphia Pagan Pride, Chicago Pagan Pride, Puget Sound Pagan Pride, Nashville Pagan Pride, and New Orleans Pagan Pride.
serpentinespiritualarts.com
Photos by Tom Atwood
Tom Atwood's recent work has focused on portraits of people at home. He has shot over 100 luminaries including Hilary Swank, Julie Newmar, Buzz Aldrin, Mark Wahlberg (Marky Mark), John Waters, Don Lemon, Tommy Tune, Meredith Baxter, Greg Louganis, Barney Frank, George Takei, Edward Albee, Ross Bleckner, Michael Cunningham, Alison Bechdel, Ari Shapiro, Don Bachardy, Charles Busch, Alan Cu***ng, and Leslie Jordan.
His second book, Kings & Queens in Their Castles, was published by Damiani. The book won multiple awards including First Place in the International Photography Awards (book category) as well as a Lucie Award (book-other category). “I shoot subjects at home because our natural habitats bring out our character. The LGBTQ person’s home is an extension of him/herself. And for a community sometimes obsessed with image and beauty, our living spaces can also be the ultimate in self-expression. With a flair for design, many of these subjects have crafted playful, often outlandish homes that tell stories about their inhabitants.”
Atwood was included in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Triennial (Smithsonian Museum). He won first place in Portraiture in the Prix de la Photographie Paris and Gold Medal at the Vienna International Photo Award. Atwood also won Photographer of the Year from London's Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, as well as first place in Portraiture.
He has won over 50 additional awards including from the Griffin Museum of Photography, Center for Fine Art Photography, International Photography Awards, Santa Fe Center for Photography, Photoville, Camera Club of NY, CameraArts, PDN, The Photo Review, Jacob Riis Award, Hellerau Photography Award, Passepartout Prize, American Photography Annual, American Art Awards, Photography Masters Cup, Manhattan Arts International, Moscow International Foto Awards, Kodak and American Photographic Artists. He was also recognized as a Photolucida Top 50 Photographer and a Photo Life Magazine Top 50 Emerging Photographer.
Atwood's work has exhibited over 60 times in over 15 countries including at the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Museum), Royal Photographic Society (UK), Griffin Museum of Photography, George Eastman Museum, National Museum of Finland (Finland), D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Kemper Art Museum, LACMA Library, MoMA, Center for Fine Art Photography, Annenberg Space for Photography, House of Lucie, Museum of Photographic Arts, Frank Museum, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Benaki Museum (Greece), Museum of Science and Technology (Germany), Shibuya Cultural Center (Japan), Círculo de Bellas Artes Museum (Spain), and LA Center for Digital Art.
Galleries that have exhibited his work include ClampArt (NYC), Steven Kasher Gallery (NYC), Foley Gallery (NYC), Louis Stern Fine Arts (LA), Farmani Gallery (LA), PDNB Gallery (Dallas), Photo-Eye Gallery (Santa Fe), Jules Maeght Gallery (San Francisco), BBA Gallery (Germany), Galerie Huit Arles (France) and Proyecto Galeria (Mexico). And he’s exhibited at various art fairs such as Paris Photo, AIPAD, Photo LA, Armory Show, Art Basel Miami, Frieze, SCOPE, Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Photoville, Yixian International Photo Festival (China), Helsinki Photo Festival (Finland), and Athens Photo Festival (Greece).
His work has been featured in over 200 publications in over 15 countries including The Guardian, New York Times, New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, Elle, Harvard Magazine, Art Newspaper, Artforum, Art Ltd., Artillery, Photo Life, Photo Selection, The Photo Review, Popular Photography, PDN, Rangefinder, LenScratch, Feature Shoot, Photographer's Forum, Huffington Post, Upworthy and VICE. Atwood has also appeared on Sirius, CBS, ABC, Bravo, Telemundo, and other networks.
Photos © Tom Atwood
tomatwood.com
Hair and Makeup by Aurora Sexton
Aurora Sexton is a celebrity makeup artist known for painting the faces of icons like Trixie Mattel, Alaska Thunderf**k 5000, Lance Bass, Paula Abdul, Joey McIntyre, Margaret Cho, and the casts of Trixie Motel: Drag Me Home and Drag: The Musical. She also starred in the film Literal Nightmare. Creative, outrageous and original are just a few words used to describe Aurora Sexton. A Colorado native, Aurora has spent the last decade touring the United States thrilling audiences coast to coast with her celebrity illusions, drop dead beauty and personal brand of black comedy that always pushes the envelope of morality, decency and taste. With a background in theater and art, Aurora puts a lot of focus on detail when it comes to her music, costumes, and performance, making her a respected and nationally celebrated name in female illusion entertainment. Much of her early career was spent competing in national pageants and contests where she was crowned Miss Renaissance, National Entertainer Of The Year, and was a top 5 finalist at Miss Continental among many others.
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