I often return to projects, as if we are in conversation and I step away for a moment and come back to it over and over revisiting the ideas. At the beginning of the process, when the conversation starts, its in the planning stage, where the photos are just images in my head, building on each other, then comes the inevitable research into a subject, in this case color. Then sourcing and making props. Finally we can begin, so my tiny pups or now tiny pup and I go into the studio and we work. I revisit those images over and over sometimes the image is perfect right out of the camera, other times I revisit it and refine it.
In the case of TONES I never liked the self-portraits. I loved the portrait structure. I loved embodying my interests and the color itself, but how I had presented myself felt…. wrong, but I wouldn’t be able to put my finger on why for several years. So I kept the props, thinking I would revisit the images someday and that day or days came this past week. In a flurry of activity- my garage is still full of ninety-nine red balloons, I set out to redo all of them. In the 80 degree heat, wearing wool in a stuffy, airless garage, I went after all seven self-portraits, because once you improve one, you have to improve them all. It’s like when you paint the walls of a room and it highlights that the trim needs a refresh too.
When I was awarded my late diagnosis of autism a few years ago, I realized part of my masking or attempting to “fit in” was to hold back some of my creative expression, so I went all in on a color project I had been longing to explore. I wanted to live one color per day for 7 days, embodying it by eating it, wearing it, exploring how other creatives use through music, film, literature and visual art and make an accompanying photography and stop motion project with music and movie playlists for each color. As part of the 49 image and 21 stop motion deep dive into color, I created one self-portrait for each color. I embodied the color and one of my hobbies or interests and it was such a relief to show up on camera that way. You can view more of the project here.
Being autistic, I have never felt comfortable in front of the camera. When I am not hyper vigilant about arranging my facial muscles in an acceptable configuration, my face rarely expresses my actual feelings or emotions, so day-to-day life can be a tiring performance in itself. This is very common in autistic culture, so the idea of an autist’s face expressing their current emotions and feelings is not a reliable gauge of what they are thinking and feeling. The neurotypical urge to use that information as representative of how an autist feels or what they are thinking can cause no end to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. So when I thought about a self-portrait for myself, I wanted to go a step further and embody my interests and eliminate the need to perform facial expressions. The relief I felt in front of the camera was life changing.
So what was wrong with the original portraits? To put it simply: the patriarchy. I was still masking pretty hard and in many different ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. So when I made the self-portraits the first time, part of that masking included presenting myself for the male gaze. That is what was creating so much friction for me when I looked at those images of myself. How I arranged my body for the camera was in part a performance for the patriarchy and now I feel like they are for me. Will I return to these images again- yes, possibly, because I feel like I could push them further, go bigger, but that’s a conversation for another day.