Thank you Emily for waking up before sunrise to shoot with me. Your face is stunning and your natural standing pose is artistic. I love being up and out on the streets when no cars are around, while people hit snooze on their alarms, when the street lights turn off, when the realization of a new day begins.
Erin and I met for the first time tonight after virtually knowing each other vicariously through Instagram. I opened up to her about a few personal items and gave those things away, but I am ok with it. We gave a few pieces of ourselves to each other, and the photos reflect some of that magic. I am excited to spend more time with her/be creative with her again. Erin Steelydanceparty ILY.
Dallin and I have been trying to get together for awhile to take some photos. He's got a look that is begging to be photographed. We wandered around the quiet suburbs of Clintonville, potentially creeping out anyone who saw us taking photos outside of their home.
Yesterday was jam-packed with good times. Mallory, Julie, Katie, and I went to Hocking Hills and had a secret waterfall and creek all to ourselves. We spent hours dancing around and laughing. Later we met up for the Rise for Reagan Block Party, supporting the change for legislation (particularly involved in the treatment of rape cases) and raising awareness about safety. We drank in support of the good cause. At night, we went to a little house show to watch Xavier perform his poetry on his racial identity and struggle, Field Sleeper singing in an extension and exaggeration of his already easy voice, and Suther (I think that was her name) sing in smooth and unpretentious melodies. I've now got Ohio on my ankle and Ohio in my heart. It's not common to have this sense of community, and I feel lucky to be a part of it. Thank you to my friends, to Columbus, to the community for inspiring others to do good and to be a part of one another's lives.
The appeal of digging up the past is the facade of better understanding the present. The reality of such an action just leads to more digging. We can understand the major events and how those might shape who we are or who they are, but what about everything else that has slipped through the cracks? What about that one time that you felt afraid to go down a water slide alone? Or that time that you kissed a stranger at a Chicago rave? Do the smaller pieces of the past get dissolved and washed away or are they part of soil beneath our feet that help us stand? Do each of those tiny grains of dirt keep piling and piling to outweigh the major events?
Alayna and I met just a few weeks ago. She is very easy to get along with and very fun to photograph, so I think the result speaks for itself.
1. My dreams
2. Tom Robbins
3. Jeff Mangum
4. Suburbia
5. René Magritte
6. Surrealism
7. Windows
8. Colors
9. Paradoxes
10. Secrets
If you like what I post on here, I urge you to take a look at this interview: http://pitchfork.com/features/interview/7471-neutral-milk-hotel/
I find Jeff Mangum (and Neutral Milk Hotel) to be totally inspirational. I love how his music is not easy to digest, but can be viscerally understood.
I feel similarly to the way he describes his music and his dreams as all flowing together in a universe of no particular time, but of one connected place. My dreams are my favorite, terrifying universe. I find that my photos capture just a glimpse of what those dreams might look like. Constant twilight, vast fields and paths through forests, mysterious homes, colors coming from unknown places. These visions are a small glimpse into my dreams. This surreal living and breathing and hiding behind you in the real.
Judy dreams of horses, but I dream of homes, where they might be, and who might inhabit them. I think that they are homes of my past life, not in a sense of reincarnation, but homes inhabited by who I used to be. Why did Judy dream of horses? To retrieve her lost winsomeness? To distract her inimical internal dialogue with a conversation with an animal? To express her suppressed temerity? Dreams of homes allow me to open doors that I did not know exist. I open them to find secrets behind incandescent lights, smiling facades, straightened hair, and blue-lit white walls.
There exists a home with life in the ceilings. Three stories, too many fantasies, and one singular tale that pervades every dream that I dream. I crawl in the ceilings of this home to escape the horror that unfolds between them. In the ceiling I feel safe. To separate myself from what is happening below, I am safe. Yet, I am uninvolved. I crawl from room to room and onward to new homes.
Can't get Britney's lyrics out of my head. I think Rineke Dijkstra struck me in such a way with her depiction of youth. She photographs adolescence mostly through the subject's awkward stance. Some days I feel like a woman, but my gangly limbs and knobby knees tell a different story.
Nathan and I drove to Blackwater Falls, West Virginia where we found few indications of what year it might be. We drank beer out of paper cups and walked through the snow on an unintentional winter vacation. Winter came strong in Washington, D.C. where the city shut down in response. Whistler, Magritte, Rembrandt, Hopper, and Dijkstra carried us through the cold. I am grateful for the remaining half-burrito in my fridge and for the crumbs of potato chips that will forever be in my car.
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
Today my mind is in Germany, lasting an entire day without letting one word leave my lips. I am talking and talking and talking to myself, but there is no one receiving. I am walking and walking and walking with myself, and there is no one beside me. I am lonely, but I am whole. The train is my vessel to the city and to the outside world. Forty minutes on my bike to get there. Always passing the same farm, but never in the same way. One day there is wheat, the next daisies. I wonder about where daisies have bloomed back home. I wonder where home is. I wonder where I am. I wonder if I will ever need anyone ever again. I am lonely, but I am whole. Today I have said words but spoken to no one. I keep having the feeling as though I am about to leave.
I look forward to freedom as if it were the road that I am driving on. Freedom is the "N" on my compass that the magnet is drawn to. I hear my name being called and naturally, I turn. February reappropriated April and the world isn't yet mad. You stole the culture of the warmer months to make the cold just a memory. Snow happened, but we have to try to remember it. We remember it by the white color, the lack of people on the streets, the slow motivation. We can't remember what it felt like. Although we remember the sensory perception while the feeling no longer exists, we cannot forget that the snow came and went.
1. create memories associated with songs
2. cook for two
3. wake up on sunday and feel the romance of the sun rays on my wall
4. purchase plants and flowers/possibly hang some to dry
5. dissect my anxiety
6. learn how to manage my anxiety/hair pulling
7. live
8. go to the movie theater
9. understand my favorite quotes from Tom Robbins novels
10. roller skate
11. love
somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else somewhere else
Assateague Island might be a place to see stars unobstructed. My shortness of breath might take me there sooner than I expected. I'm alone, and the walls are closing in. Still, my lungs are stronger than yours. I breathe, and I see stars. Can't keep food down. Have to keep my voice down. You're buried underground, and Assateague is disappearing. Somewhere, there is an island, and someday, there will just be stars.
