You know those days where you’re just going along, doing your thing and then out of nowhere a voice in your head pops up out of nowhere and says weird stuff like, “You would look better with a smaller nose. Your lips are too tiny. You need to gain some weight. What is the deal with that wrinkle between your eyes?” That happened to me today, and I got kind of sad for a minute.
And then I was like, hey, Lily and Thomas, can you take my picture? And they were like, um, ok, but why? And I was like, “Because I am feeling completely and utterly vulnerable and I want to capture this moment because someday when I’m 96 I’ll be like, girrrrrl what were you feeling sorry for yourself for? Look how human and alive you were!” And also, I think it’s important to photograph myself as part of this life’s story, too.
Self acceptance is a work in progress for me. It has taken me years and years to finally be OK with the fact that my art is not pretty. It’s imperfect and human and real and beautiful. And maybe the next step, is to feel the same way about living in my own skin, too.
