...There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions...
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
They don't write them like they used to, anymore. As a teenager, I drank up poetry like water. While classmates in high school trudged through The Odyssey for required reading, I turned those pages as though they were leaflets from a holy book. I lost myself in those worlds and words.
Somewhere along the way, I became afraid of expression. I was exposed to phenomenal works of unabashed emotion all throughout my childhood and youth. Yet at some point, sharing what thrilled and inspired me became frightening. It was a combination of worrying people wouldn't like it and worrying that they wouldn't like me. And to be honest, I still wrestle with that.
An artist can't really create if they let fear control them. So I've begun a dialogue with myself (thanks, in no small part, to the input of a wonderful book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert - bestowed upon me by my very dearest friend who knows me and my hangups better than most). I'm still afraid. I acknowledge it. I'm still afraid that if I show you what I love, I'll be rejected for it. But I'm going to try to be brave and to honor the voice that's been hiding behind that fear.
These photos are from a boudoir shoot I did last week. The subject is an old friend, borne from the same microcosm of fear, and likewise, flipping it off. I love these photographs. I do. I'm thrilled with how they turned out. I'm happy that I was able to make the subject feel confident and comfortable and sexy without any modeling experience. She did a great job. We had fun. The photos turned out pretty damn good.
There you have it, Fear. I know you're in the room. I know you're here to stay. But from now on, please sit nicely and don't interrupt. Inspiration and I are having a conversation and you're not invited to chime in.