Interview 2
Q: Your work is technically very well done, stylish, but what am I looking at?
A: I don’t really know how to answer that other than to say your looking at my various whims. I have a thought that I should do something, and it seems better to try it than forget about it. I’m not super calculated as to why I focus on one thing over another. However, I am very aware that the way I look at things is not necessarily the way those things really are, so the photographic aesthetic is my way of explaining that. (or helps support that)? Nothing really looks like this. People don’t look the way they do in magazines, and cows certainly don’t look like science fiction sex objects. But even if someone isn’t interested in farm animals, or distorted bodies, my hope is that my asthetic makes those subjects more powerful for those who are uninspired.
Q: So you just go with your gut? A: yes
Q: But is it important for you to understand why you make these choices, or pick these subjects?
A: I am not sure it is literally the subjects that are interesting, but maybe my need to deform and abstract them (or maybe i’ll just say “Modify” them). I think I have a need for things to be different than they are, and I want control over how those changes are made. I think I’ve tried to put an emphasis on the things I think the world is missing out on with my work, but I have a hard time explaining that confusion, or lack there of to people. I think that for now, it might be best to show it.
Q: So what are you working on now?
A: I am trying diversify from cows, but without doing what I did when I moved to the cows-which was to bring the identical process from nudes to cows, and from cows to other animals and plants. It is hard when you are used to a working practice. I am trying to decide is it more important learn more from my choice of subjects, or lean more via altering my working process. Currently, I am trying to choose a subject that does not particular excite me. I’ve starting shooting this one pig. and the thing is i’m not that interested in this pig. But pigs, they have their own social significance and their image in society and I don’t believe I will be able to reshaped that. Pigs do not have a positive reputation, and I don’t think there is anything I can do with an image to change that. But what is interesting I guess about this pig, and my disinterest or hesitation to deal with is it that because pigs are so pigeon held to be dirty creatures, unedible by the religious groups, synonymous with slaughter, “cops are pigs”, all these negative connotations, it just seems like no one will be hearing it. And what is unfortunate for pigs, is that in reality, they are extremely intelligent, empathetic, and deeply sexual animals. But its too much of a job to try and sell that to someone when there is a history of the filthy pig. But maybe that is what will be interesting about trying to work with the image of a pig. (reshaping taboos, or stereotypes) Now that I am thinking about it, I had a conversation recently about my ex lover. I was with a man, and we were talking about this ex I had, who was really masogonistic. But I loved him anyway, and I was ok to be the lesser one in the relationship, because it wasn’t worth it to fight for an equal share. It was too big of a job to have that battle with him, or with any firm man. I didn’t even want to bother with feminist comments or calling myself a feminist because he didn’t like it, it was just too hard to change his mind. I could never win the argument, so it was easier to just have him as this dominant figure. And its kind of the same way I’m looking at the pig. Like it would be too much to reshape the way people look at pigs. But in reality, what did a pig every do to get such a bad reputation? In logic, its offensive to call cops pigs, because a cop has a validly bad rep. and a pig has an irrationally bad rep. I might be loosing the train of thought here….but maybe i’ll pick up with this the more I work on this little piggy. Q: Im thinking about what your saying with how you were bending everything for your boyfriend. Because I had the same relationship with one of my exes. But it was extreme, I would do everything and he would do nothing and I was okay with that. It was ridiculous. And now, I resist bending at all because I don’t want to fall into that trap again.
A: its hard this feminist time were in, because at the same time, yeah, I would like to get paid the same amount as a man, or not get like leered at, or be afraid to not say “thanks” to the creep who tells me i’m beautiful late and night when I am alone, but in relationships and with people, in social relations, its unpleasant for a woman to be like “I’m being treated like a less than, when at the same time, I’m a upper class white girl from America, talking to you from my my overpriced apartment, and in the scheme of things, nothing has been that bad for me. Other than these little things, but these little things are like I stubbed my toe today. They don’t cause me deep pain in the long run but even if they did, isn’t it fucked up that we can’t see it, and that we don’t think it is worth the sacrifice to move past it? I don’t know. I guess it feels like its too much to deal with. And its safer and feels more comfortable to be like just.. I’ll be the girl and you be the man, and lets just stick with these roles.
Sidebar: I did get really mad the other day. I was standing on the street with my parents and my brother. My brother says “you see all those guys in the car are staring at you”, I look, and say to him “whatever”. I feel them staring at me for the next minute or so. And I just started to get angry about the leering, and as I go to raise my hand and flip them off, they’re already screaming “BITCH!” out the window at me. and later, my parents, both of them said I MUST have done something to entice that response. My brother defended me, and said I literally did nothing but stand there, and glance at them once. WTF is that.
Q: So I know you’ve talked about feeling sexual anxiety before when you were doing those early self portraits. It doesn’t really sound like you’ve really got that out of your system.
A: No, I guess not. But I kind of stopped working with nudes and myself for the same reason. I didn’t want to have to give interviews and talk about feminism anymore.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: Because all of us women are saying the same thing, and it starts to feel like a sham. We all say we want this, but even I am too fragile to apply it to my own romance because I am scared of losing the love of the man. Basically, until men and the public are really ready to be empathetic, it is just going to be more of the same. And I’m tired to trying to sell something that I am too weak to even buy.
Alter Answer: I was tired of the confrontation. The critique of feminist work made it so that making the work wasn’t liberating anymore. I starting shooting images of myself because I saw how my look helped me to gain certain opportunities, and I knew I didn’t get those chances because I said the right thing, or I studied the right thing. I got them because I have a nice face. So I made images of myself, where to me, that wasn’t my face anymore. And I don’t know why, but it helped me to relax about the state of things. I had been pretending those photos were made in this other place. Another time, where things we as bad as they would be in my most paranoid imagination. Some how that helped me. Now, I am comfortable knowing that I may get an opportunity that a homely young man will not get, or that a homely young woman will not get. And so doesn’t that make me the anti feminist? Maybe. I don’t know. See what I mean? this feminist/identity/liberation shit is rough.
Q: So how do you think you ended up with cows from this moment of feminine identity?
A: Like I said early on, it was kind of a whim. It just felt like the right next step. If I wanted to talk about identity, and pigeon holds, it seemed only appropriate to focus on the animals dubbed cows, but called cattle. I’d also kind of landed there from reading Terence McKenna’s “stoned ape theory”, the theory that the domestication of cows led to our consumption of psychedelic mushrooms, and resultingly, the development of early human language. But once I finished my first few months of shooting with this one breed of cows, I lost my train of thought a bit, and found myself wanting to get back to the body.
Q: Is that why you started throwing naked chics on top of the cows?
A: Yes, but also because the cow photos were so beautiful, and the human body is so beautiful, I did the simple math and thought “wow, that would be stunning”. Simple aesthetics. But fits into a lot of other smaller ideas, but it was really about how the images would look for me.
Q: In other interviews, you’ve said that the work was about showing the women as a commodity like animals for meat. Is that something that is important for you to relay to an audience?
A: Basically, that is a very obvious thing to deduce when you see the images, so I made it a part of the project because I think it made them easier to talk about. But now, after I’ve spoken so many times and in so many different ways about the project, No. It is not. Because it is obvious to everyone, and what I did is not really challenging that image of women. If anything, it makes a better joke than it does a serious critique on female objectification.