I talk a lot about my journey into boudoir.
How it started from a place of darkness and loneliness in my own life. A place of feeling invisible.
Photographing women, giving them a chance to feel seen and have a holistic experience, tricked my brain into thinking that I could give that back to myself. And, it worked.
It gave me the strength to make the changes I needed in my life to get to a place of wholeness and growth. Their bravery was a domino effect and mine soon followed. Okay, maybe a couple of years later, but it still followed and I know that these women had a lot to do with it. How could they not? By creating art with them, our stories were intertwined. I couldn’t tell my story without them and vise versa.
This leads me to my feelings on art being inherently selfish.
When watching the short and beautiful film, Eat Flowers, I was struck by Cig Harvey’s words when asked by her sick friend to send photographs each day. Cig says, “Each day I go out and make something to send to her. Each day she asks me to send more. As she loses her senses I want her to experience them through my pictures. An explosion of color and light. I feel useful.”
I feel useful.
I FEEL USEFUL.
This is exactly how I feel when I create art with my clients.
How much of it is me wanting to tell their stories and how much is me wanting to share myself? Does it matter? What happens if our stories never get told?
One of my favorite authors/poets Nayyirah Waheed has a short poem that has always resonated with me. And while this poem is about appropriation, it also rings true with any form of art:
“would
you still want to travel to
that
country
if
you could not take a camera with you.
-a question of appropriation”
―Nayyirah Waheed, Salt
If no one viewed my art, would I still create it? If I could not share it with the world, would I still want to pick up my camera?
The biggest part of art is connection; connection to others and connection with oneself.
I photographed an Orthodox woman a while back. Her photographs will never see the light of day. It was one of the most beautiful sessions I’ve ever photographed and yet, the world will never know about it.
But, she does.
She holds those photographs in her hands and remembers our experience together and a time where she was brave and curious.
While these are held close and private, I still had that experience with her. I could have not created those without her and she could not have those memories without me. I found great joy when she told me how much she treasures them and how the investment was huge, but worth it. It’s selfish of me. That validation feeds me.
When I had my daughter I was HUNGRY to create; to escape.
My reality was dark and I was lost. When I could walk away from motherhood, and create with other women, I felt whole again. I felt like me. I was allowing myself to live in that selfishness for a fraction of time, pushing away the heavy gravity of what it means to be a mother.
I was drunk in the possibility of stepping away. I couldn’t wait to talk with the women I was about to go on this journey with and hear their stories and live in their world for a few hours, days, or even weeks. When I would go back to the heaviness of motherhood I would dream about the next time I got to create art with these women.
All this to say that while my clients are grateful for the experience I give to them, that we create together, there isn’t a world where I don’t owe them everything.
They have not only fed my family, but also fed my soul.
The women I’ve gone on the journey of storytelling and documentation with have given me a reason (and permission) to be selfish. They have given me an excuse to not escape reality, but to shape it into what we dream it could be. If only for a short time.
