You did the self portrait practice for 11 years, through sobriety, through different apartments, through pregnancy and then it just ended, without a farewell. Looking back now, do you think the project was always a conversation with yourself about who you were becoming? And do you know yet why it stopped?
Thank you for reading so thoughtfully and for this question. I think in many ways the project changed and reached it’s end. I was packing up the house I had lived in for 8 years, and my mother in law was over helping and I snapped the last photo with her there and it felt so rushed, and so not what the project had been - which was a practice that had sort of been a private exploration of self / self vs other / public vs private / a cheeky commentary on the internet and parasocial. I miss it every day, and there was a moment in our new home where I thought I would set the camera up and take the portraits again, with the same couch but without the record background, and I just never did it. It might be time to start again, or find a way to compile the old ones in a place to be viewed. I had for many years a website but I could never find quite the right website and about 365 days x 11 tended to crash whatever site I was trying to load them up on, but maybe Substack is it. Or a flip book. It is strange to look back on them now because in so many of them I was puzzling out something, and I was feeling quite lonely in Los Angeles when they started. There was a photography exhibit I saw when I was 15 or 16 in Venice, where a female photographer had set up these self portraits of herself sleeping, and whoever got up first her or her partner would fire off the camera, I have never been able to find her name or seen the photos again but it was clearly such an inspiration. I love the record of days that are simple and rooted in the every day. On Kawara also had a tongue in cheek practice where he sent postcards to his friends with the time stamp of when he got up in the morning. My project was titled “This is how I felt when I got up this morning” or sometimes “when I got home this morning” (only a few very observant people caught the difference in arrival time.)
This was me last week: "The beans I made on Monday night were older than I thought and don’t soften even after the 2 hour mark. My daughter spitting them out while I eat bowl after bowl."
Also we need those old recipes! My mouth is watering and they sound so elegant and effortless.
Loved this one. Could especially relate re. the cooking of course. We had frozen Trader Joe’s pizza last night (which was surprisingly good!) Very fun seeing your self portraits over the years!
You did the self portrait practice for 11 years, through sobriety, through different apartments, through pregnancy and then it just ended, without a farewell. Looking back now, do you think the project was always a conversation with yourself about who you were becoming? And do you know yet why it stopped?
Thank you for reading so thoughtfully and for this question. I think in many ways the project changed and reached it’s end. I was packing up the house I had lived in for 8 years, and my mother in law was over helping and I snapped the last photo with her there and it felt so rushed, and so not what the project had been - which was a practice that had sort of been a private exploration of self / self vs other / public vs private / a cheeky commentary on the internet and parasocial. I miss it every day, and there was a moment in our new home where I thought I would set the camera up and take the portraits again, with the same couch but without the record background, and I just never did it. It might be time to start again, or find a way to compile the old ones in a place to be viewed. I had for many years a website but I could never find quite the right website and about 365 days x 11 tended to crash whatever site I was trying to load them up on, but maybe Substack is it. Or a flip book. It is strange to look back on them now because in so many of them I was puzzling out something, and I was feeling quite lonely in Los Angeles when they started. There was a photography exhibit I saw when I was 15 or 16 in Venice, where a female photographer had set up these self portraits of herself sleeping, and whoever got up first her or her partner would fire off the camera, I have never been able to find her name or seen the photos again but it was clearly such an inspiration. I love the record of days that are simple and rooted in the every day. On Kawara also had a tongue in cheek practice where he sent postcards to his friends with the time stamp of when he got up in the morning. My project was titled “This is how I felt when I got up this morning” or sometimes “when I got home this morning” (only a few very observant people caught the difference in arrival time.)
This was me last week: "The beans I made on Monday night were older than I thought and don’t soften even after the 2 hour mark. My daughter spitting them out while I eat bowl after bowl."
Also we need those old recipes! My mouth is watering and they sound so elegant and effortless.
They were so easy! I’m going to try to bring them back. Thanks for seeing me.
Loved this one. Could especially relate re. the cooking of course. We had frozen Trader Joe’s pizza last night (which was surprisingly good!) Very fun seeing your self portraits over the years!
❤️ sometimes it’s just a frozen pizza dinner night or two or three.
I love this Jane!
Thank you for reading Hannah!