ROAD TO SAFETY

I worked on something this week with Melissa, one of the girls who has agreed to model for my project, and who I blogged about a couple weeks ago. 

In photography class at school, I am developing some of the skills (namely using a lighting kit, becoming familiar with my camera and its settings, and working with a model) that will come in handy for Late Bloomers. 

I have been putting a lot of effort into the assignments for the most part because photography and storytelling through this medium are things that I care about and want to take pride in, so I was thrilled to learn one of our assignments was a photographic essay.

I thought carefully about what I wanted to do for the photographic essay, and the only thing I could think of was my fundamental objective for my art, whether written or visual: provoke thought and create conversation, because those are the things that lead to change.

So I chose to explore the topic of domestic violence through the photographic essay. I worked on the photoshoot with a team including Melissa as the model, my sister’s boyfriend Kyle as another model, and Loren Hansen (a friend of mine who is also a MAC artist) for makeup. Kirah Sapong, a friend of mine from school, also assisted setting up lights on the shoot, and I photographed and conceptualized it. 

The subject matter is heavy and the most common reaction to the finished work was people grimacing, which is exactly what I wanted. I did not want people to feel comfortable when they looked at this photographic essay, I wanted them to become uncomfortable and comment on how uncomfortable it is to know that domestic violence is a reality for hundreds of thousands of women across Canada, so the converstion will not come to a stand still and awareness will continue to be raised. 

I also chose to explore this topic because it is something that has defined my life in a way. My mother, sister, and I were all victims of domestic abuse, so I have seen it first hand. I know what it feels like to feel unsafe in a place where you are supposed to lay your head to sleep, where you are supposed to call home. This issue is important and I do not want people to fall silent about it. 

BREAKING NEWS

I have decided that I want to write seven short stories for the collection, and I think I have settled on the themes (make sure to comment or message me because I would like your feedback on this):

1. Being what you believe about yourself

2. Relationship to a higher power
3. Relationship, or lack thereof, to parents
4. Death
5. Standards of beauty for females in North American culture

6. Role models
7. Gender identity

I am really excited to have narrowed these down, but I admit I am feeling overwhelemed because these are big topics to cover, and I want to do them justice. I would appreciate your feedback, and I have some cool interviews I have lined up for the next few weeks so I will be sure to post about them.

DELICATE BUT ROUGH

I am moving ahead with the collection and I am even surprising myself a little bit about the initiative I am taking. 

For the photographs, I want to capture girls who I consider to be beautiful, and that can mean many because as I’ve noted previously, my taste is eccentric.

This week I met with a girl named Melissa, who I knew of growing up, but had never actually met until tonight.

We met for a glass of wine and I asked her if she’d be willing to model for some pictures I am going to use for the collection. What I like most about Melissa is her smile: she has the most beautiful, straight teeth I’ve ever seen, and she is altogether a beautiful girl and I love that she looks like a bad ass, too. She is the perfect combination of delicate and tough -- to me, those qualities together create the unique beauty I associate with young women I admire.

She was kind and a careful listener, and we talked about our lives and all the people we both knew while growing up in the North End of Winnipeg. 

That’s pretty much all the progress I have to report on the collection at this point, other than keeping my senses in tune to oberving people around me and trying to decided what my ideal audience (young women in North America) would want out of a short story. When writing, I not only have to imagine things from someone else’s perspective when I am actually writing the story, but also when I am thinking about people who are going to be reading it.

What will they want to know? Feel free to comment!

MOTHER COURAGE

Hooray! I conducted another inteview for Late Bloomers. 

The interview was with a girl I’ve known since elementary school named Stephanie. 

I remember Stephanie, and always have despite us not being close, because her mother died when we were ten. I could not believe it when the teacher, after reading us another chapter of James and the Giant Peach, told us that Stephanie and her brother would not be at school for the week because their mom had suffered a heart attack. 

I was very close with my mother as a young girl. Although our relationship has often been shaky, she means a lot to me and I remember thinking that death was impossible. It just was not possible for a ten year old girls mom to die. 

So I met with Stephanie at Baked Expectations to talk about it, since one of the themes that will govern a story, I’ve decided, is death. This was not only an opportunity to gain insight into the mind of what will become a protagonist in a story I am writing, but one to ask questions I have contemplated literally for most of my life. This event affected me even though I was not involved.

Needless to say we were both sobbing by the end of the interview. 

“Unicorns were always special to my mom and I,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I walked into a store, not far from here last summer, and saw a little, white unicorn figurine. I knew I had to get it, and the man at the till told me that someone was watching over me. I don’t cry about it that much anymore, but then I did.”

She also told me her mother wrote her a note when she was a little girl, and she reads it on her birthday every year. When the family moved houses, however, Steph though she lost it.

“I have literally never been afraid of anything more in my life,” she said, before telling me she later found it. 

I was so thankful for Stephanie opening up to me. I feel as though young women who have mothers and who don’t will be able to appreciate her story and I can’t wait to listen to the interview again (I tape recorded it) and start creating my character.