PROJECTS
A sample of some of the meaningful projects I have used to sustain my healing and find more ease in my human experience.*
This is a representative collection of deeper projects that I share with my supporters. Consider a donation if you would like to see and know more.
*Everything here is self-shot, modeled, and edited unless explicitly stated otherwise.
We are by and large utterly terrified of silence, stillness, spaciousness— the doing of nothing so as to feel the totality of everything.
(2023)
"IN THE RED"
(2020)
My favorite part about this photoset is that I shot it three years ago... then never looked at the photos or otherwise did anything with them until recently in 2023.
This set of images was not the primary objective of this shoot day. It actually wasn’t until recently that a call for work called for me to pull them up for the first time.
This was shot while I was “in the red” aka not feeling great. I had just spent a couple days traipsing through the East coast Autumnal splendor of the Blue Ridge mountains with some friends, during which I was too sore to really enjoy myself. I hadn’t learned to sit with that frustration yet (I’m still learning now), so I was losing my mind. The drive back down the range was a cry-drive. At some point I pulled over in this random tiny town that I would never be able to identify without checking the location metadata of photos I took. This decision was made solely based on the perfectly rotund male cardinal perched on a power line above. I got out and followed him down the pathway. And I worked through my shit. Writhing, dancing, stretching my arms out through the cold wet fog. For a long but totally unknown amount of time.
After that, soggy and pacified, I left and drove home. And I didn’t even look at the photos because I had gotten what I needed. In this case, the images themselves were more of a secondary byproduct of the experience.
"P R A N A
I
S
I
N
G"
(2019)
"GETTING THERE" (2023)
"THE
DOWNWARD
BIG
SPIRAL"
(2020)
"TIME TO SLEEP"
(2019)
"TIME TO SLEEP" (2020)
"HOLD ME"
(2020)
I had previously poured myself into many projects looking to express my discomfort in my own hyper-flexible, unstable body, as well as my drive to reclaim my sexuality and form a personal identity that spoke to a healthier attachment to my pain. Then pandemic hit, and everything got much more difficult. Forced solitude, loneliness, and a longing for touch, made me ever-more ready to welcome hands on my body, whosever they may be— but my own touch was a sole resource. So that is what I did.
A loss of access to manual therapy, bodywork, and other nodes of physical rehabilitation had me feeling less and less stable in my hyper-mobile self. Longing for solid ground, stability, something to lean my tired bones against, I found myself placing my own hands on my body to steady myself and bring myself home over and over again. I listened to the sensations, felt my own strength, and found comfort and peace within my body— by my own hand.
In shooting this self-expressive concept, I began with a still, quiet evening in my “home studio”— a black cloth on the wall and a couple of small lights. I shot myself as-is: tired, bruised, and longing for touch. I placed my own hands on my body and steadied myself. I felt the breath come into the parts of my body cupped by my palms and grasped by my fingers; I felt muscle tension melt with each slow exhale. And I shot each moment as I found my way up my own body. The place where my inner experience inside myself met the outer stimulation of the world was found right between the contact points of my own hands on my own skin.
When I was done bringing myself home, I looked at every captured moment and remembered the sensation of feeling grasped and held, and wondered what it would be like to feel all of them at once. I composited every grasp of my hands until I had the final product. And suddenly, I could imagine what it would feel like. Every soft and steady touch condensed into one careful embrace, a welcoming cocoon of my own shape in space. Creating and watching this piece became a tool to swiftly carry me home to my own body once more. I held myself.
"HIDDEN PALMS"
(2022)
Took some amazing photos on an adventure that provided me a lot more than I thought it would-- and right when I need it the most (it has a tendency to do that). I've documented this adventure in the video below.
I’m just out here attempting to do justice to the decidedly important things that bring me joy.
Body hurts too much to do things like go to the store, return emails, or sit around doing nothing?
(The biggest exacerbators of my pain involve compression/contortion/flexion without core engagement.)
How about we instead trek hours into the Colorado desert to a place found on a whim via satellite maps in hopes of doing the "naked church thing" and perhaps there will even be ducks.
(Spoiler alert: there were ducks)
"HIDDEN PALMS" (2022)
"DOUBLE THE PAIN
DOUBLE THE PLEASURE"
(2020)
One of my favorite Prana Projects titled “Both Ends” and “Double the pain, double the pleasure” at various times of their individual conceptions.
It comments on the juxtaposition of being in a body that hurts, while also being in a body that is inherently overtly sexualized. For a long time I felt trapped in my vessel in between the two limiting identities of my Prana Machine (my body) being a vehicle for pain and a device for other’s pIeasure.
Specifically, when I made this series two years ago my sciatica was awful. I felt viscerally afraid and physically incompetent, but the sexual objectification didn’t relent, and it didn’t seem at all fair for others to gain pIeasure from my body while I wasn’t feeling good inside of it??!
So I said fuck it, chopped off my spinning head and doubled the pain to double “the pIeasure.” Not a good deal. Not a sustainable existence. Like burning a candle at Both Ends.
It is when I rejected these socially imposed identities (after making a bunch of art to identify them) that I began to find my freedom.
"EARTH BOUND"
(2023)
"UNSTABLE"
Suffering from spinal instability causes a constant feeling of ungrounded-ness. It deeply affects my ability to feel rooted into the earth when I move across it. I used this concept to portray how I feel by duplicating and offsetting the ground that holds me. This is a doubly meaningful project as I was churning heavily through my pit of doom for these very shots. It had been a very hard day. The process of creating these was a pacifying experience. Eventually my shaky body and weary mind became quiet and still. I felt the contentedness of pressing and moving my body against the natural earth and the satisfaction of feeling out another way to visually express my plight. I would not have found this peaceful and ultimately satisfying shift without spending intentional time in this creative and cathartic moment.
(2019)
"MY EYES ARE UP HERE"
&
"KITTY BITES"
(2020)
"ODDITIES"
(2019)
PUBLICATIONS
NUVU - print, international, 2021
KEYI - print, international, 2021
Top Posters - print, USA, 2021
Makeda - print, international, 2022
Kaiser - print, international, 2022
Blue Frame - print, USA, 2022
Marika - print, international, 2022
Queer - digital, USA, 2022
Sensualidad - print, international, 2022
Art Of Portrait - print, USA, 2022
Vigour - print, Canada, 2022
Top Posters - print, USA, 2022
Moscow Tonight - print, Russia, 2022
Moevir - print, international, 2022
Beautica - print, international, 2022
Dominante - print, France, 2022
NUDE (#33 Chaleur) print, USA, 2022
NUDE (#36 Monochrome) - print, USA, 2022
Thin - print, international, 2023
Opium Red - print, international, 2023
Unattired - print, London, 2023
Top Posters "Mane" - print, international, 2023
Top Posters - print, USA, 2023
Artells "Oasis" - print, international, 2023
Figgi - print, Italy, 2023
Lorius "Hot & Cold" - print, international, 2023
Dominante - print, France, 2023
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
"Control"
Nomad's - Norfolk, VA
PAST EXHIBITIONS
"A Woman's View"
SE Center for Photography - Greenville, SC
