EllynAnne Geisel and Kristina Loggia met in December 2001 at the Miss Rodeo America pageant in Las Vegas. A Los Angeles photographer, Loggia was in Las Vegas to finalize a two-year odyssey photographing rodeo and its participants, while Geisel, a Colorado writer, was following her journalistic interest in the subculture of rodeo royalty.

Among the few attendees not outfitted in belted Wranglers and tooled boots, they stuck out and struck up an immediate friendship. Introducing themselves, the two discovered they have sons identically named. The coincidence was so stunning, the strangers knew their meeting was not happenstance. They parted unclear why they’d been brought together, but certain that destiny in the guise of the Miss Rodeo America pageant would eventually reveal itself.

From December through May 2002, their emails were mosaics of their differences, with Loggia sharing the hectic pace of a professional parent and empty nester Geisel writing about an apron project she’d been incubating for several years. Loggia, who was raised in a home where an apron equaled servitude, was intrigued by people’s responses to Geisel’s vintage apron collection and the stories she was collecting. Following her instinct that the recollections were historically and socially important, Loggia offered to photograph the storytellers. Destiny had revealed itself.

Geisel and Loggia worked for two years to bring Apron Chronicles to fruition. They declare themselves extremely appreciative of the contributors, whose images and voices give life to APRON CHRONICLES: A Patchwork of American Recollections.