the thing about epiphanies

Last week I had an epiphany while I was listening to a guest speaker in a class I was taking. The speaker, a fine art photographer, was talking about his work and his process. I don't remember his words, only the lingering impression of how he spoke about endings. About projects having their duration, and yes, I've shot projects that had a definite ending, but this was more about exploring a theme, an idea, and how it too eventually ends. 

If you know any back history with me, you'll know that I've struggled for months, (ok, it's a year now, fuck!), with the idea of having an artist statement and how to curate my own work.

You might remember me mentioning a conversation I had with a gallerist this time last year. I took avid notes. I tried so hard to remember what he was saying, trying to absorb and understand it in the context of me as a photographer. It was a long process. An entire year, almost to the date,  before what he'd said to me made any sense.

This revelation allowed my vision to clear and I saw in crystalline detail, that I'd completed a particular series of double exposed self portraits. The last one in the series, no. 20, was in this post, and it wasn't until later that week, as I thought about that lecture and endings, that I realized that no. 20 was the end. I sat down and wrote the artist statement to go with the work. There wasn't a lot of editing, the sequencing of the images came to me as easily as the words, and it is done.

The images are printed and in its own, archival, clamshell box. I truly have this sense of freedom to move forward now that I've had this moment. 

With a fresh outlook and better understanding of what I want as a fine art photographer, I plan to look at my work, (current and otherwise), and put together new portfolios, if they exist. It might be that this one body of work is enough for now, it might be that the rest of my work to this point is simply a pile of pretty pictures.