by Rebecca Cornwell | Oct 13, 2014 | Stories
The Uncensored Stripper by Rebecca Cornwell
I first came across @TheUncensoredStripper in my @SundayBluesEdit tag. This Sunday community has been my Instagram home for almost 3 years. I’ve met incredible people, heard amazing stories and viewed tens of thousands of breathtaking and sometimes gut-wrenching photos. I’d started to feel, in the glut of images I see everyday, that there wasn’t going to be anything new, and maybe there isn’t, but every once in a while something knocks you off your feet and out of your comfort zone. @TheUncensoredStripper snagged me with her moody, beautiful, insightful, surprising, sometimes seedy and always eye-opening images. Not long after studying her photos, like any artist might- we’re always interested in “how it’s done”, I started to read.
With each consecutive image and its accompanying text, she drew me closer. Like with any great writing, I couldn’t stop reading. She pulled me along with every image, giving me the honest, brutal, heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious details of her life. I don’t think of myself as prudish or even very shockable. I didn’t know if my fascination with @TheUncensoredStripper had to do with an element of voyeurism into a world I really knew nothing about, or if it was sensational or even taboo at times. After continuing to read and study her images, I decided @TheUncensoredStripper is just a brilliant storyteller. Pair that with her compelling photography and she’s given you something you wont be able to tear yourself away from. She will have you returning to her blog and her profile over and over to find out what happens next.
TUCS: I was born in San Francisco and raised in a loosely based hippie commune by vegetarian drug dealers. Yearning to live my life on my own terms, I moved out when I was sixteen and worked as many as three jobs at a time to make ends meet. I started stripping two years before I earned my BA in Social Science and have been a stripper and prostitute for over twenty years. The sex industry is demanding, both mentally and physically, as strippers are often treated like living blow-up-dolls while simultaneously acting as therapists. Strip clubs are a circus, brothel and wellness center wrapped into one. The sub-culture requires thick skin and an open mind in order to succeed, as well as avoid going insane. My longevity in the field is a reflection of my chameleon-like nature and my innate skill in the art of giving (and faking) affection.
In conjunction, thanks to my in part to my unconventional upbringing, my tolerance for dysfunction is set impossibly high, rendering me well equipped for the industry. I have lived my life as an open book, having the opportunity to dispel a few myths and misconceptions along the way. My memoir, Anything but a Wasted Life, aims to capture and reveal my unorthodox life. I have always loved photography, and about a year before I started writing Anything But a Wasted Life, I took pictures of one of my co-workers for her modeling portfolio with my point and shoot digital camera. I loved it, and she said that I had talent and a good eye. I continued to shoot. One of the perks of being a stripper is that I am surrounded by gorgeous, uninhibited women who want/need sexy pictures of themselves. I had my first solo art show in 2007. I started shooting with self-manipulated medium format film camera’s later that year. I am self-taught in both arenas.
I have journalled in a stream of consciousness style off and on my whole life. When I shared bits and pieces of my life with people (I have always lived my life as an open book), a common reaction was: you should write a book. I had never considered myself a writer, nor was I trained in the field, so I would laugh and write it off as something people like to say. But I kept it in the back of my mind as a possibility for later. Then, in the mid 2000’s business at the club took a dive, and I had long pockets of down time. I brought a composition pad one evening, and it poured out of me. I was hooked. My manager wasn’t quite as thrilled, but he loves me so he let it slide. The entire memoir was written first-hand and then later put into the computer. It was written mostly at the club as well as in local watering holes around Los Angeles. I knew that if I ever did write a memoir, it wasn’t going to be in the traditional autobiographical style; I was born on this date and raised here. I am not famous in any capacity, so who cares about me? It’s how I see life and human behavior that I think people relate to and are entertained by. It also happens that I have crammed a lot of off-the-wall shit into my forty-four years, and people are curious about the sex industry.
I believe that watching women dance nude on stage for over twenty years has given me a unique perspective of the female form, as well as close proximity to harnessing sensuality in a visual format. And of course, the use of angles and light. I wrote Anything But a Wasted Life as a candid, unapologetic, 115,000-word memoir. I have experienced the pitfalls of being naked in front of strangers and the absurdities that arise when you fake intimacy for a living. As the title suggests, it is also about rarely said “no” to life I recount falling in love with a girl in high school, patrolling at night with a couple of cops while high on acid, living in a luxurious, converted missile silo from the Cold War. It’s always my intention to show the reader the secret world of stripping and prostitution through an often drunk, occasionally sarcastic, and frequently funny magnifying glass. Until recently, I had kept my writing and my photography separate.
Last year I had the idea to open an Instagram account to post excerpts from my memoir. I matched these excerpts with images from my past, then started posting some of my fine art photography photos. Currently, I am putting together my third solo art show where images will be keenly interlinked with my memoir. Unlike my previous art shows, this one will be keenly interlinked to my memoir. Anything But a Wasted Life is a tell-all about myself, no one else. All of the names of people famous or otherwise, referenced in the memoir, have been changed.
These images: The three black and whites are self-portraits. It’s damned near impossible to shoot myself with my medium format plastic cameras, so these were done with my 5D, and then a mix of filter fun via various apps. I like cutting women’s heads off in my photography, this is the same with myself. The shot with the records was taken about a month ago with my point and shoot 35mm. One of my images I sell the most is of a woman’s legs, retro lamp, record player and vinyl records that I took in 2010. I put this shoot together so I could add to that genre to sell. I took the Holga shot of the Capital Records building back in 2008 when I was still living in Hollywood. That building has been captured in so many ways, I was wondering if I could get it from my own perspective with my manipulated camera.
The last image is actually the girl I had my very first photo shoot with (this was taken a couple years later). She freaked out when she saw my Instagram account and asked me to take down some of her pictures. She did not want to be associated with stripping in any way (no one knows she used to dance). I removed a couple shots where you could semi see her face, but I have signed model releases, and no one will ever know who she is, so I kept this one up, which I love so much.
Excerpt from Anything but a Wasted Life:
It’s your typical night in the dressing room. Girls drinking, girls talking shit, one girl inserting a tampon. Another is on her cell phone. Two are speaking too loudly, and four are heavily spraying themselves with sickeningly sweet body spray. And me, leaning over the counter applying my ho-bag makeup. Two plastic bottles sit next to my Mac brushes, one with vitaminwater, the other, apple vodka in a vitaminwater bottle. I swig one, then the other. Total shit. I hate vodka, but it leaves my breath smelling less like a barroom floor. And it’s cheap. I apply shiny powder to my cheeks and over the thin lines around my eyes, to mask my experience. I’m a forty-three-year-old stripper. I’ve been dancing since college, more than twenty years ago. One of my roommates worked at The Lusty Lady in San Francisco, a female-owned and operated peep show, and another acquaintance of mine worked at Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre, the city’s premier strip club. Having witnessed their lifestyle of glam and financial freedom, I decided to give stripping a go. I was tired of being broke, working three jobs and having very little energy or time for homework. I was pre-law. My goal was to re-design the prison system. Suffice to say, law school never happened. Within a year, I was making more money than judges in San Francisco, my hometown. The prisoners would have to wait. I’d never had that much money before. I was raised by a single parent and have been on my own since I was sixteen. Most girls (myself included) start dancing with the intention of doing it less than two years (in the beginning I thought I would dance through law school and then quit). Nearly all stay two to seven years. Only a few of us stay this long. Stripping was incredible when I started. It was special and still somewhat underground, a unique adventure for the wealthy. Times have changed. I make an eighth of what I used to, and there’s practically a strip club on every corner. I suppose I’m a bit spoiled. Wake up when I want, work when I want, get paid in cash. It’s not a bad life. And I’m good at what I do. Sometimes I think it’s a curse to be skilled at making men feel good. Funny thing is, most of them want to make me feel good. That’s the secret.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Jun 2, 2014 | Rebecca Cornwell, Stories
Real Life Fiction by Rebecca Cornwell
This is a work of fiction; at least that’s how I like to think of it…
I can never decide if I should tell this story from the beginning or the end. Would it help you to know there is a happy ending? Would you prefer a mystery? Or even a comedy? This is the problem I have. If I had been able to see the end, I would never have jumped into that whirlpool but I couldn’t help it. Once you get to be my age, you realize time is running out. Fading looks, increased baggage, the inability to make any space for anyone along with a heightened fear of growing old alone. Somewhere along the way I missed the memo that we’re supposed to pair off and board the ark.
I rattle around in my house eating pretzels for dinner and I’m kind of content. This is what I tell myself. Despite this, I blindly enter in to these ill-fated relationships again and again. I can’t breathe and I feel society and my upbringing in the back of my head screaming that without a partner (preferably a husband) there must be something wrong with me. Probably there is but that’s not this story, is it?
This story is about Stan and you never know when you might find yourself in this position. You should try to be prepared. I certainly wasn’t. To say he was charismatic wouldn’t be accurate, although it might have served as a decent explanation or even an excuse. I love charisma. Something that is confident and glittery and draws people in. Someone who can tolerate darkness and still remain intact. I married my husband because everyone liked him. He was easy going, which I was not. He didn’t rub people raw, the way I did. He made me look better just by proximity. Politely, he ignored my depression and my inability to go with the flow. He encouraged me to smile and pull myself up by my bootstraps. God, I would have loved to be able to do that, dust myself off and get on with the day. I was always swimming upstream, making everything harder than it needed to be. I liked to stir things up because I didn’t fit in. I justified it by pronouncing that I just had strong feelings about things. After a time, I think this will exhaust a person. Exhausted with me. That’s the way I remember the end of most of my relationships.
When I met Stan I felt he was like that, like my now ex-husband. Quiet and confident, laid back but not charismatic. He had a way of hanging back and blending in. I’d met him online, the bars of the technological age. In one of his photos, he had an impish grin that made me think of a little boy who had just eaten cookies that were off limits. The look wasn’t so much a guilty look, but a look of having gotten away with something. He was exceptionally pleased with himself.
On our first meeting, he turned the tables and did this thing that women learn to do from reading articles in women’s magazines titled things like, “How to Get and Keep the Guy.” They would give advice like; “Ask him questions about himself. People love to talk about themselves. Make him think he’s the most interesting person you’ve ever met.” It’s not real…mostly women aren’t that interested in what men have to say. Mostly, they just want to be liked. Stan left all the air in the room to me. I talked, he listened. I talked more. Rambling on about only the stories that make me look good. Nothing unflattering crossed my lips that night. Truth is- I like to leave that stuff out always. I’m never quite sure if even a humorous story about your drug addicted parent or the weeks you’ve spent in bed battling depression are ever very flattering and I knew at least enough not to share them on a first date. Anyway, he seemed utterly charmed by me. Truthfully, I am pretty charming or at least I can be. This is a little trick I learned from my father- the drug addicted one. You can be the biggest asshole on earth but if you have charm, you can disarm almost anyone. Never, ever, underestimate charm. My father was a charming troll of a man who went out for a loaf of bread when I was two years old and never came home again, at least that’s the version of the story my mother likes to tell. She’s probably kind of bitter though.
Psychologically speaking, having any man think I was the most interesting person on earth was the easiest way to fill the void that has lived at my core for as long I can remember. That’s a strange thing to admit at this point in my life and not at all flattering. Non-existent fathers can leave gaping holes in their daughters. We end up spending so much time trying to be good enough for anyone or everyone. Some of us become over achievers while others of us rebel. Some of us harm ourselves and live chaotic, risk taking lives while others of us become self centered and narcissistic. It’s complicated. So many self-help books and so little time.
But back to the story- the one I want to tell about Stan. Just like my father knew that charm was a great manipulator, Stan knew that filling voids in women got them right on the hook. I’m embarrassed to tell you how easily I took the bait. I didn’t even realize what had happened. I like to think of myself as so much savvier than that. In fact, I like to give advice to my friends about how they are making bad choices or have they thought about this, that or the other? I’m just a fountain of therapeutic advice and really I should be. I have been in and out of therapy for 26 years. I’ve made every mistake in the book. I’m a textbook case. In my defense though, this mistake was a new one for me, sort of.
The romance started slowly. He was methodic in luring me, steady, always listening, encouraging me to open up, without ever showing any of his own cards. Masterful. When I look back from the end of the story, this all makes sense. I always felt a little off kilter, never quite knowing where I was. We went through the motions of a relationship because by this time we should know how.
The funny thing is, in a lot of ways I couldn’t stand him. Stan was a critical and judgmental. He disapproved of me the way my mother did. “Is that what you’re wearing?” She would say when I showed myself first thing in the morning on my way out the door. I knew instinctively she didn’t like my style. Neither did Stan. Truth be told, I couldn’t really stand his either. He had this late 80’s early 90’s casual, albeit too casual, thing going on. Short-sleeved button up shirts with khakis. Only the shirts weren’t cool or nerdy, they were outdated. These were the clothes he’d liked 20 years ago and they were here to stay. He wore t-shirts that advertised, “life is good” or “ I’d rather be FISHING”. I adored listening to him tell me what a disaster his daughter was, raving about how she couldn’t turn on the windshield wipers in her new car, so she idiotically drove home, unable to see in the pouring rain. “Life is Good”. He wore flip-flops, which, by their very nature, confuse me. Why bother with shoes? Just go barefoot. Take a stand. Flip flops aren’t shoes. They aren’t anything and this isn’t the beach.
I wanted his approval regardless of his terrible sense of fashion and the lie of his t-shirt slogans. I worked so hard to get it. I chameleoned myself. I listened closely to the things he said. One day he told me, he liked women to dress down, wear a baseball cap and jeans, so I did. He was a recovering alcoholic. He didn’t drink, so I didn’t either. I did drink when he wasn’t around, though. In fact, I drank a lot, like my dad. Drinking helps me turn down the noise in the void. I couldn’t hear its echo quite so loudly and on top of that, drinking makes me more charming.
I’m a 50-year-old woman not a 16-year-old girl with a crush. Really, had I learned nothing in all this time? Like you, I’m wondering how and why. I’m strong. I’m a survivor. I’ve been through some shit. I’ve been hooked and thrown back enough times. Somewhere around 10, excluding high school, which isn’t real life anyway, but who’s counting? My memory isn’t that great. I used to be able to remember the visceral details of every experience. How things smelled, the leaf on every tree, the way the light in the room was both warm and made me think of my lonely childhood all at once.
When Stan suddenly disappeared, I felt both confused and relieved. Abandoned again. I’ve come to expect this kind of behavior. You never know when or how but sooner or later they go out for a loaf of bread. Sometimes I can’t wait to see how it will play out and other times I know it right from the start. This one was a new one for me. Stan left me for his ex-wife. He had two and this one happened to be the second.
In hindsight the second ex-wife makes perfect sense. I’m the kind of person that will ask a hundred million questions. Stan did not find this charming. In fact, it exasperated him. He would just say “you can’t ask anymore questions about this”, referring to whatever the subject of my current interrogation. Ex-wife number two was completely off limits as a topic but my curiosity has no manners. At the risk of more disapproval, I asked about her. He only said two real things about her, both of which unnerved me and both of which I remember clearly. “She was my prize and I took her,” he said one night while I was cooking dinner. Like cookies you aren’t allowed to eat. I didn’t question the statement. I peeled carrots, staring at the bright orange shavings against the dull worn white of the porcelain sink. So many things were going through my head. I wanted to ask at least a hundred questions and I didn’t want to think about the idea of being with someone who thought about women this way. My prize? Like a ribbon? Or a statue? Maybe a trophy, like an academy award? I imagined her perfect – gold plated, wrinkle-free and flawless, not at all like me. I imagined him worshiping her perfectness and parading her for all to admire. Her arm in his, her mere existence in his world made him feel better about himself. Just by proximity, she made him look good. He’d traded up and he couldn’t believe his luck. I did not get the sense that he felt that way about me. I knew that she ended up throwing him back. He was a bitter little Napoleon who had treated his first wife badly. He told me when his second wife, the golden prize, left him “he got his.” Those were the words he used. We were driving on the freeway and he was staring out the windshield at the cars ahead. He said it with such sadness, the only real sadness I had seen in him. I felt sorry for him. He said it was divine justice. He believed in God. He was in AA and he liked to spout AA dogma. My Higher Power. This kind of chatter always made me smirk inside. He controlled everything. There was no higher power. You can’t ask any more questions about that.
Ten years into my marriage, my husband had an affair. When you’re in the dark you develop other senses beyond sight. I felt the nervous energy come off of him. I felt the uneasy tension in every gesture. He looked sideways when he was shaving. He couldn’t sit still in front of the TV. He swallowed too hard when he drank his coffee. There’s a way in which men act when they are unfaithful. I think they can’t help it but they wear it like both a medal and a noose. That’s when I started to look for clues and evidence. It was everywhere, receipts, emails, phone calls, the smell of her lingering perfume mixed with the regular smell of his alcohol and cigarettes. He threw me back too, but not for her.
When Stan went back to the gold-plated prize, everything seemed to make perfect sense, at least to me. She was his desire and I was completely inadequate, as usual. This is the void that sits there. It mocks me, reminding me, nothing is enough. I am not enough. This is the bullshit girls learn to tell themselves. This is the shit the TV wants me to buy. This is the culture of scarcity. Honestly, I looked pretty good on paper. Kind of a catch even. Smart but not too smart, independent, easy enough on the eyes, and in case you forgot, charming. But once I’m caught, not enough. Not big enough, colorful enough, just not enough. Certainly not a prize! So, Stan threw me back. Of course. Who expected this to go any other way?
Surprisingly to me, I could breathe. Knowing you are going to get tossed back, makes it easier to tolerate when happens…sometimes. This time I was filled with gratitude and I wished him luck. I couldn’t believe my generosity. This was completely out of character for me. I’m a depressive. Change, powerlessness, rejection – this would be the perfect time to get under the covers and cry for weeks. By every account this was a betrayal. Who goes back to their ex-wife? The one who broke their little tiny cold heart? I mourned my loss…briefly. I had never been left for another woman and I think if I’m honest with myself now, that was the worst part. I don’t like to think of myself as competitive and here I stood, the loser of this round. This is when I unwittingly entered the vortex.
Less than a week later he circled back. He’s humbled. He pleads. He’s apologetic and I’m elevated. All of a sudden I have the upper hand. We’re chasing our own tails. Suddenly, I’m the trophy, mounted and put on the wall. I’m the winner. I’m gloating. I’m big enough. I get to ask all the questions I want now. I’m elated.
Really I don’t know what happened when he went back to her. I didn’t even bother to try to ask. It’s also possible that he told me and I forgot. Some memories wont stick no matter how hard I try to recall them. I can only guess that she threw him back, again. Probably then, he wanted to feel better about himself and I’m an easy catch. He knows that. He dangled the bait. I didn’t even question, I just opened the door. Come on in. Please someone. Fill the void. I promise I won’t ask any more questions.
The idea that he was a sociopath never occurred to me. So far this is just a typical tale of a breakup and get back together. Philosophically, I think people that get back together after a breakup are foolish. I’m foolish. I’m naïve and trusting. I’m a blinding optimist; at least I still was at this point in the story. I know this from my past already: when something is lost and then found, you hold onto it, tighter than ever. Don’t lose it again. Get control of things. Stop swimming upstream.
You think I’m delusional. Didn’t I just say I could breathe again a couple of paragraphs back? What am I thinking? This is what I think; I won, I’m good enough, I’m the prize. I know how to do it now. Dress casually, put on a ball cap and jeans and don’t ask questions.
Even as I write this I’m shaking my head. Maybe it would help if I explained the part about Stan being a sociopath? Sociopaths are cunning and manipulative. They don’t think rules apply to them and most importantly they lack empathy. I, like a lot of women, brushed aside the parts of Stan I didn’t like. I ignored the details that didn’t gel with my idea of love or whatever. This isn’t out of stupidity. It’s because I wanted to fill the void. Win, get control, have peace. You’re getting older. Time is running out. Everyone is screaming and I can’t breathe. Do what you’re supposed to do. Get on the ark.
Sociopaths do things to other people just to see if they can. The second breakup blindsided me in a way I had not been blindsided before. If you didn’t already know this story was true, you might not believe it. I wouldn’t, if I were you. Seven weeks after the first break up, I found myself having a romantic weekend in Belize. Stan and I arrived hand and hand. The water was the most perfect shade of blue, and the sand smelled of hot salt and decaying fish. I find myself getting comfortable. This is paradise. What can go wrong? This is the beginning of my happily ever after. I got the memo. You can stop screaming. The bungalow is beautiful. It looks as if it’s straight from the pages of a travel magazine. Picture perfect. Everything is perfect. The room, the beach, the crystal clear blue water. Perfect, really, trust me. Breathe. Relax. You don’t even need to ask questions.
On the second day, or the first, I can’t remember which. Stan made a big deal about taking a business call at 10a. I think I was 10a, maybe it was 2p but it doesn’t really matter. The point is, Stan never takes business calls, not even during business hours. Stan has no connection to his phone. In fact, he has deep disdain for it. Cell phones don’t fit with the carefree, easy-going, “Life is Good” persona he’s selling. Stan and I had numerous discussions about phones and phone etiquette. The fact that Stan hates his phone is relevant to the plot. We’re in a tropical paradise and he’s taking a business call. He also has his phone with him at all times. He’s emailing and texting someone with regularity. This is highly unusual for Stan. Only now does this obsession with the phone make sense. At the time I rationalized it. Maybe leaving kids at home? Maybe a big deal is brewing at work? I don’t know and know better than to ask. Stan doesn’t like questions. We know this. I suddenly I feel like I need to be on my best behavior. This is perfect paradise. I’ve been left in places by men, restaurants, and airports and once on a hiking trip through Thailand. He just left me with my backpack in a foreign land. I’m learning to keep all my questions under wraps. He’s a small man with a bit of a Napoleon complex. He needs to control things. I know better than to mention this as well.
I’d begun observing Stan after the break up. Up until the time of the trip, he seemed more connected to me, more open with his feelings. More tolerant of me and my idiosyncrasies. At the time, I thought he regretted breaking up with me. I think now, he wanted just to keep me on the hook. I’m an easy catch. I’m cynical now, in a way I wasn’t then.
At dinner one night, Stan described, in detail, the story about how things ended with his first wife. I wish now I had listened better because you and I both know people don’t change. The story he told made him look like a jerk that had driven her crazy. He seemed to take pleasure in the idea that he didn’t have remorse about doing what he had done to her. He was having an affair. He didn’t return her calls or communicate with her while she was devastated by his disappearance. They had a small child and she was not a strong woman. Run. That’s probably what you’re screaming inside your head. You weren’t there that night and clearly I’m swimming around in the dark here. I sank deeper.
The next day as 10:00 am or 2:00pm approached, Stan set me up with a task that would keep me from the bungalow for the call. I was to get snorkeling gear and a kayak so we could paddle out to the reef or was it bikes so we could ride into town? It doesn’t really matter. After completing the task, I waited. Patiently. Still. Quiet.
It’s terrifying for me to know that memories are not accurate record of our history, and that memory is malleable and that the mere act of remembering alters the memories. That afternoon the waves were hypnotic. I stared out into the sea, thinking of my history. I could hear Stan’s voice floating through the air from the open windows. He has a beautiful West Texas accent that makes me think of dusty wind. There was pleading and hushed words. Somewhere in the breeze it occurred to me this was anything but a business call. I heard him say sweetly “I promise. The second I get back, Julie. I promise”. I considered walking slowly and quietly into the sparkling blue of the water. It didn’t seem cold and dark but warm and inviting. Glittering and confident, just the way I like it. Clearly, I didn’t walk into the ocean. This is what I did: I walked into the bungalow. I picked up my purse and my passport and left Stan in a foreign land. At least that’s the way I remember it.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Apr 8, 2014 | Featured Articles, Sunday Blues Edit
The Other Half of #SundayBluesEdit: An Interview w/ Monica Izquieta by Rebecca C
I must first admit that I am biased towards @Izzylune. I know her in the “real world” beyond the invisible Instagram walls, but it was her photos that first drew me in and made me want to know her, the woman, the person. This is a powerful pull not to be underestimated. With the glut of visual imagery we see all day, every day, to make someone want to know you with your images is pretty powerful stuff.
Most of you know Monica as Izzy or just the incredible @izzylune. Her charm, wit and enthusiasm comes through in her every post and comment. If you haven had a chance to interact with her, you’re missing a level of intelligence and insight rarely found in the world of IG. Initially, I “met” Izzy through the images she started tagged in my #sundaybluesedit tag. Her raw emotion was impossible to ignore. Something in her beautiful huge blue eyes made me fall in love with her in a way that connected souls do. That sounds cheesy but, in her, I recognized myself. A younger me.
Izzy is alive with a spirit that draws people to her, so when I felt like the @sundaybluesedit needed a co-pilot I knew exactly who to ask. After just a few days I felt as if I had known her all my life. She has an undeniable passion for art, photography and all the emotions that come with the blues. She’s also and amazing photographer in her own right who weaves fairy tale magic out of the most ordinary of daily scenes. I’ve always wanted to know how she makes her magic…so I decided to ask.
Who are you and what you do in your real life?
In my real life I’m a mother to the two lovely children often showcased in my gallery, an avid gardener, a glorified proof reader for local accountants and at one time, a fine arts major who loved getting her hands dirty.
Tell me about your love affair with mobile photography
My love affair with mobile photography happened really quite by accident. I had been shooting with big girl cameras for roughly 7 years, before that I tinkered with old school manual cameras, and by tinker I mean broke. During that time, I shot mainly my children and landscapes, scratch that, I still only shoot that!
I’m admittedly a first generation iPhone user but I didn’t discover that my phone could create such amazing photography until probably my 3rd iPhone. My ex-husband is extremely tech savvy. He was the one told me about instagram. We were on a car ride to Mystic, Connecticut, from that moment on I was hooked. I started exploring IG into the wee hours of the night. For years I felt bogged down by motherhood, unable to paint and really just uninspired. I believe at one point, I was so desperate for creativity I took up wreath making. Instagram and iphoneography, opened up a new world for me. I’m glad I don’t make wreaths anymore.
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by a lot of things, nature being a huge one, humans, obviously, another. I’m one of those people who stares too much and for too long. In the event I witness a crime, I’m gonna give the cops everything shy of the person’s blood type. I’m truly fascinated by people; their mannerisms, speed patterns, gaits and style. I could people watch all day and have been known to do so. On more than one occasion I have sat inside of Grand Central station so long, even the bums were changing shifts. Other inspiration comes from well-known artists, mainly painters, and then those I follow religiously on IG (who, in my mind, revolutionizing the way people view Photography as a whole). I think the reason mobile art appeals to me so much, is the challenge of creating superior images without the polish of professional cameras which seemingly, do a lot of the work for you- digitally speaking anyway.
Your images are overflowing with emotion. Palpable. Where does the need for sharing this honesty in such a pure way come from?
Oh, my talking about my images is a bit surreal for me. I’m always my own worst critic. In terms of the pictures though and whatever emotion is conveyed, I have to really say I’m a very animated, expressive, sometimes intense person in real life. I tell stories and people just come closer. I have my hands waving wildly and I’ve been known to do impersonations. I am very colorful. So when I’m happy its clear as day and when I’m sad there’s no hiding it. My mother says everything I’m ever feeling is easily read on my face and especially my eyes. I’m not one for deception I think. I’m honest to a fault really. I put it all out there. The emotion I desire with my pictures is rawness. I have a few people I follow on IG that do raw and deeply personal emotion so provocatively and gracefully. I thirst for that. I think in terms of portraits it’s so much greater to see and feel simultaneously. When I was in high school I participated in a coveted poetry competition and poetry became my entire life for years on end. It was during this time that I explored emotion even deeper. I had always been obsessed with art, so much so that it disturbed my academics, but in the end the poetry was what actually prepped me for photography.
I’ve observed an almost surreal like magical fairy tale like quality in your images. Can you talk about where that comes from and why that imagery appeals to you?
This perception makes me smile impishly. The fairytale quality you speak of is not intentional. Actually, Im elated to hear my images all have something in common I feel like I’m often falling all over the map.
However, when I take a picture, thankfully, I know immediately what corner possesses something unique.
I know I’m a beauty seeker. Maybe that’s where the dreamlike quality comes from? I don’t have an appetite for grim, grungy, gory or dark. Actually, I’m easily disturbed. I guess this is why I don’t watch the news or tv at all. I do know I get excited by the most minute details in everything from an inflection in a persons voice, to the way they place their hands, to shadows, lines etc. I obsess about these things in my daily life. It’s like music for me when I discover a song that I like…I play it a thousand times in a row. When I love…I love deeply whatever that thing is and I want everyone to see it.
Photography is the only thing that allows me to feel comfortable exposing the tender aspect of myself. It’s with the pictures I want to be boundless.
Photos:
Landscape: like all my photos this was shot with hipstamatic…with a relatively uncommon combination of Mabel and Alfred infrared. I wanted that deep red currant color
Against matted blue skies.
Lily in the orange chair. I shot this with tinto and float I admittedly have an affinity for floats delicious tones although it’s speckled vignette makes me crazy so I’m always retouching it out or hiding it the best I know how. I’m not one for over-editing. Her pensive glare and Alice in wonderland charm drew me into his moment.
The hands: this moment happened so extremely quickly I shoot with watts a lot so it defaulted to that…i love how crisp and dramatic it is. Tender moments between my children are slim sadly they bicker a lot but in this second of passing raspberries the world melted away when I saw her arm naturally fold behind her and those tiny hands extend.
Black and white selfie. Oh the light in my family room is amazing…I have at least 50 plants in there, it is my refuge from the world. I sit in this big 1960s golden-yellow chair constantly and watch the clouds roll by. This afternoon I adjusted the sheers on the doors and saw something I wanted to capture so I set up my gorilla pod set it to tinto and black keys super grain and measured myself into the frame just so then asked my daughter to press the button three times. So actually….this is a collab. I wanted to overcome my discomfort of profile portraits I never liked my very Italian looking profile but alas it’s very much me and if you can’t love your face by 30 then you never will.
I want to thank Monica for her time, her boundless sense of humor and endless support. You can join Izzy and me at @sundaybluesedit all the time but especially on Sundays and you can view Monica’s incredible work on IG at @Izzylune and on Tumblr: Izzylune
by Rebecca Cornwell | Mar 21, 2014 | FEATURE, Featured Articles
Creating & Looking :: An Experiment with Two Photographers by Rebecca C
I’m interested in the differences between the intention of the artist vs the reception of the image by the viewer; what the artist puts out in to the world and what we, the viewer, receive. To investigate this idea I’ve asked two photographers, Michel and Deena, to choose a work of their own and write a little bit about their purpose in creating the image and/or some background about how the particular image came about. I asked each of them to write about what they saw in their own image and then to exchange images with each other.
Once they received the image from the other, I asked them to write their thoughts about the other artist’s work. I asked them how it made them feel and how they read the image, a gut reaction and not a critique
This is what Michel and Deena shared with me about their own images as well as their initial thoughts about each other’s images.
I would like to thank both Deena and Michel for participating in this experiment.
Deena’s thoughts on her image:
My way of editing is very unconscious most times. I see things and make note of the intention for that image. Working within the squares is what I think of first, and secondly, the image that will overlay those squares. This image was made after spending a weekend with my two siblings. When I started making the piece, I always start with the content of the squares. I make sure the images won’t be too invasive once I’ve added the overlay. My sister has an infectious smile. For this image I knew I wanted to make an image to reflect that while creating a piece that tells another story within each frame. The starkness of snow scene with its minor details of trees and power lines worked for this piece as an overlay, adding story elements without detracting from my original intent.
Michel’s thoughts on Deena’s image :
The photograph is musical. I first sense the count, the numbers involved. The four images, three frames, two overlaid pictures and the single composition. The square frames measure a melody of lines. There’s a catalog of linear elements, straights, arcs and scratches, wiggles and woggles. This melody plays across the scene looking for an anchor, an alignment to hold on to. The anchor it plays to are those tones, the larger scaled human form that rests so quietly. Finally, I see two different spaces, the perspectival depths of the lines against the flat human tones and their shared fragile tethers
Michel’s thoughts on his image:
There’s a found horizon line which sets up two spaces in the photograph. One space harbors solid forms and bodies the other is ephemeral and fragile. Between them lies a tension. That tension is described in the fragmented and reflected pieces, an altered third space, a new layer beyond that horizon. This reflected view is what holds the picture still, a glimpse of the unexpected, if even just for a moment.
Deena’s thoughts on Michel’s image:
Black and white and architectural. The element I find myself gravitating toward in Michel’s imagery is not always shape, line, and form but the space between what he sees. This image feels as though there is a dialogue happening between the two buildings. Being pulled upward by the lines and feeling the balance. One building seems almost transparent and yet the viewer can see the reflection in the other building’s façade. The words chosen to accompany the images always provoke my imagination.
You can see more of Michel’s work on G+ // twitter // Flickr // Instagram and Deena’s work here.
