Some people have iPhone photo dumps or brain dumps, where they just need to get all the stuff out in order to clear space for new stuff or to let it stop freezing them up and move into a new version or move forward. Well, this is a literary version of the same thing. A dump of the past month of conversations and internal workings. It’s all stuff that matters and that I will continue to process and probably continue to write about more cohesively. But for now, the dump and the vision for moving ahead.
I’m still recovering from the past couple weeks. No, not because I was sick, but because I was burdened. I’ve been sifting through so many things, excavating….and, it’s one of those weird times where you know nothing actually ‘happened’, but it feels like everything happened. And the world looks different. Like tiny little pieces of things start chipping off…small micro griefs, minuscule let downs, emotional whispers and soon enough you realize crap is different and you feel heavy.
I was recently talking with a friend of mine who’s going through a tough time right now. She made the comment, ‘how are you so eloquent all the damn time?’ And I laughed, in text mind you (lol), and corrected her, knowing that I am not so eloquent all the damn time. And this is one of those times. Where I’m not crafting something eloquent because I feel like what needs to come out just needs to come out. Sometimes, if I take the time for promptings and thoughts to become eloquent before I write them down, they slip out the back door without saying goodbye or leaving a note. So here we are, words are jumbled and weird and there’s too many of them and there isn’t any great vocabulary or any proper punctuation or anything like that. Just words on a page that maybe fill in some gaps. More like my journals, full of scribbles in the margins and scratch-outs and incomplete sentences and that type of stuff. Exactly what my inner life feels like a lot of the time.
So, like I said, the past couple weeks have been heavy for me. I’ve been struggling through grief with friends and realizing the grief I hold of my own. Trying to understand medical diagnoses. I’ve stared at the wall a lot and stared out the window a lot. I’ve sat in the same chair for far too long and tried to just deal with stuff in my body, emotionally and physically. I’ve had fights with my kids and fights with my spouse and fights with the dog and fights with myself and fights with technology.
I’ve been furious at friends, harboring jealousy, feeling unwanted.
And, at the same time, digging into questions about art and being an artist and having lots of unique and multilayered conversations with people along those lines. Which also lends itself to lots of staring at the wall. It’s less about art per se, and more about the inner workings of art, where it’s coming from…things I’ve spouted about in IGTV videos previously, the why’s of creating and sharing. I’ve always felt inferior and like, ‘not an artist’, because I’ve never had that totally dialed in. I’ve taken some personal hits as of late from people whom I love to no end who have pointed out all those inconsistencies. I’ve gone into deeper depth with other artists and good friends about functioning on autopilot instead of being intentional. And then dug into the questions of my autopilot being geared toward making me happy and satisfying myself and validating myself. And is that unique to me or is that an across-the-board human thing. Addressing accusations of vanity and self importance and looking intently into narcissism and what I do and have done that is inline with all that and how my self-deprecating style basically begs people to validate me. How I have a history of preloading because I’m insecure.
And more, responding to a year of convos and a few really intense books and, in general, the disastrous nature of the racial and political temperature in America. The fact that my kids are black and I’m white. I’ve started seeing the make-up of the larger systems of power I live in and been seriously shell shocked in situations and in realization of things I do and work I create that perpetuates it all. Sometimes being mad at myself for it taking so damn long to see this, but at the same time just wanting to continue to learn and dismantle. And, dismantling…dismantling more systems of conservative christianity specific to the church and small group of christians I was surrounded by as I grew up. How those systems have shaped my sexuality, my ability or inability to deal with real internal struggles, my humanitarian work, the roles and structure of my marriage, adoption.
It kinda all comes down to feeling crazy heavy. And also paralyzing. In January, I took a break from social stuff again to figure out what was going on inside my psyche and what I really wanted to give my time to. That’s when I felt motivated to start getting my work out there. The work that is just sitting there staring back at me from behind a screen. So I got excited and motivated to start selling prints. Motivated to commit to valuing what I do. To commit to being consistent. And that’s a personal goal, something I struggle with and feel is connected to bigger insecurities. So, I made this commitment and started selling The Boardwalk Series and got all into that and then decided it wasn’t what I wanted to give my time to. And also got sidetracked by all this deeper stuff. And I just changed my mind.
Even more than that, I’ve been crazy frustrated with the digital process on all levels. I’m pissed with the frantic, frenzied nature of shooting, the unsatisfying experience of files on devices, the instant need for output, the fake feeling of ink on paper, the fleeting nature of all of it. I was bred on black and white film. It is my first love and the one I am being drawn back into. It is tangible and long lasting and I’m tethered to it. There is mystery and accidents. And I’m realizing that pull for me in this particular moment in time is not coincidental. It mirrors internal processes. A getting back to roots. A healing. There is fear in me associated with a need for permanence, the desire to not be forgotten. Wanting for things to slow down. There is the internal satisfaction of using my hands and my body and my brain to accomplish things. The sensory satisfaction of the sounds and feels and smells of all things film.
It’s a new beginning or an old beginning or a beginning again. But, regardless, I am a beginner. A beginner, but with enough muscle memory that I tingle when I start to get it right again, when I relax a little in the aspect of moving my camera and settings and focus and I start to see the world again. I learned early, how to shoot with 35mm black and white film, how to process it in a darkroom and how to shoot my camera completely manually. But nothing much beyond that. I had 3 years of learning at the community college level, then just played with it. And I was a really crappy shooter. And saying that, I’m actually more excited about getting back to this at this point in my photography career. I am a much better shooter. Better at composition, better at getting myself where I need to make the shot, better at making changes in camera. But, I don’t want to stay there, with just shooting 35mm. I want to learn this shit. Figure out what each film does and their personalities and the personalities of different cameras and lenses. I want to know this. Like really know this. And fall back in love.
That being said, it is all a process. And on some level, that is what ties me to it also. The process. I’m a believer in learning from process. So, in desiring to get back into this and at the same time wanting to be consistent in showing work, I’m taking this train back. Back to the archives. Back to binders filled with black and white negatives. I’ve been pouring over these negs and test prints and contact sheets, spreading them the length of my kitchen table late at night. Engaging the world I lived in and the worlds I photographed. I’m looking back at marks I made on contact sheets of images I liked then and laughing, because, quite honestly, most of them seriously suck. I’m slowing down. Knowing there is so much more intent and focus and attention to craft involved. Less instantaneous validation, but more the validation from knowing that you put so much into something you loved and you were able to create something you take pride in. And it is filling me up in ways that noone really even needs to know about.
So with that, I got out every film camera I own and am shooting with all the expired film I could find in boxes and bins and bags. I really have nothing to show for myself at this point. Except the archives. To start sharing images that literally noone has ever seen. Early practice of visual design elements. Travels. My nephews. It’s a practice I need right now. A process I want to enliven in myself. Some images totally suck. Some are ok. Some are borderline good. Some suck and I love them anyway. Some could have been good, but I messed up. But, I’m putting this stuff out there. To engage a part of me that needs to be expressed, to stay consistent with continuing to see my processes as valuable and to give the opportunity for anyone who wants to to engage something in themselves too.
This work was shot on 35mm film black and white film, developed by me in the school lab or at home in my bathroom. Obviously, these are digital scans, which is just how we have to roll right now. I’m not printing these, so feeling ok about it. I realize this is a pivot from where I was headed and adding a completely new dimension to anything anyone sees on my current social media platform. But, pivoting is kind of normal for me (and ask anyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with, it is infuriating, also). I change my mind hourly (hence the goal to stick with sharing work and be consistent with that). And, I don’t exist in a compartmentalized life where everything fits nicely into Tupperware and stores like a puzzle in the fridge. All the spaces of my life ooze into the other ones, so it feels really inconsistent all the time. It is really inconsistent all the time. And, my social presence on Instagram is really evidence of that. One day that means I’m playing play dough with my 5 year old, the next I’m climbing a mountain, the next day I’m taking pictures of myself naked and trying to figure out why I feel so sad all the time. And now I’m adding some early film photography work to the mix. So be it. It is what it is. It’s all there kind of coexisting in the same spaces internally in me and in the same physical spaces a lot of the time, too.
So, I realize it jumps around a lot. And I’m ok with that.