The Rabbit Hole That Finding an Old Self Portrait Creates
Digital portraits have a short life span. You may think you’ll always have the same online accounts, but over the years, you change. You abandon old accounts. Others are deleted from under you. Things expire. You lose those portraits.
I don’t mean to start this post on a negative note - but I do want to say, I’ve discovered an old portrait of mine that I didn’t print, but that meant so much to me at the time. And it has been the best rabbit hole to climb into. I’m printing these images now, when I should have years back.
A little backstory…
In 2013, I graduated college with a Bachelor’s degree in Art History. I was still experimenting with self portraits. In the weeks after graduation, I borrowed an old camera from my Godmother, and I experimented even more with self portraits. This was an easier task because this camera had something my other camera didn’t: a pop-up viewfinder.
Many, many portraits were ruined before this because I always work alone and it is near impossible to center myself. The ritual involved running back and forth, marking the area on the ground to stand, and hoping that I’m both in focus and centered. I still struggle with this and my new equipment because they also lack a pop-up viewfinder.
Anyway, all of this is to remind you - the things that are important to you will keep better in physical form. Everything digital can be taken away instantly. I don’t know about you, but during this quarantine, this eerie fact has felt like a weight on my shoulders. The days when the internet or the power goes out, I’m thankful I still have DVDs and physical books to read. (I’m currently in the process of creating a more sustainable physical life, rather than a digital one, but that’s a topic for another day.)
I hope you enjoy looking back through your photography and artwork, or whatever creations you enjoy doing from the past to now, and I hope you enjoy remembering the feeling of creating it: what was happening in your life at the time, what you were working towards, whether or not you achieved it or if you created different goals. We are all learning who we are as we go forward. 🙌
I look back at this portrait, and I remember the spring day in March. The wind blowing through the wind-catchers, singing a special tune. The hummingbirds sipping at the flowers behind me, their wings creating a harmony with the wind. I remember the degree and the art grant I had just received; the promise of making work that people believed in. Sunlight dappling through the avocado and orange trees and hitting my eyes just so.
I remember writing a post about this then as well. I likened the portrait and the feeling I had when I created it, to the tarot card this blog is named after - The Nine of Pentacles. Forward momentum. Hard work. Ambition. Enjoying the fruits of your labor. Knowing that the things you want in life will come to be so long as you continue to work for them.
I hope this quarantine continues to find you healthy and well.
