SEEN // ERIKA EDDINGTON

I have been photographing Erika for seven years. I have images of her hunched over a table, fiddling with petals in her early 20’s with old-soul fashion. She wore a striking white lace top tucked into something perfect.

Once we images of her precariously teetering on a wooden ladder while wearing woven wedges. Sweaty and determined we set a scene in an overgrown field, both of us pushing away stalky sunflowers, hoping the ladder would hold. We needed her high, we needed her caught in the late fertile light of September. Like yesterday I see her straw hat angled in picturesque style on her curl-topped head, surrounded by sunflowers.

We made photos on her wedding day, standing on a carpet of summer grass with perfect Claudia Dell contrapposto. She wore a classic cream dress, a peach in hand, wearing a bemused smile.

I have behind the scenes images from my Provo studio where she arranged flowers to top my Dotter’s tiny head and later atop Carol Lambert’s elderly one.

Mrs Lambert’s granddaughter hired me to photograph her purple-obsessed grandmother and I hired Erika to make floral crowns. We worked together to make images that captured Carol in her aged glory; crone, mother, maiden, girl- all the parts of a woman there and gone, rising to old age in the white-haired woman who sat regal, in flowers. Carol died a few days after that session of royal purple and flowers. We caught that image just in time.

As women and creatives, Erika and I have seen things, life has intersected over us and we’ve witnessed it together and apart; a confluence of witnessing and documenting, sharing and showing.

Erika has allowed me to chronicle her majestic life unfolding; here a little, there a little while mine unfolded unseen behind the camera. Totally comfortable and trusting, our relationship has always been fed by apertures and flowers. Each time we’ve worked together we basked, created and remembered while I attempted to understand the ethereal spaciousness of the archetypal woman in myself, in her, in Carol, in us all.

And so it is.

Here are some images from last Spring when we celebrated Erika. I hope to make photos like this again.

And so it shall be.

THOUGHTS // Resisting Perfectionism by Speaking Shame

It’s a curious thing to know the power of being present, while being pulled magnetically to the fascination of what is, at its core, a worshipful curiosity about the past. This tension is what makes me the photographer I am. Sometimes looking back is celebratory, other times grief-stricken but nostalgia can be a middle-sitting spot of honoring what once was. Life and living are not about building a shrine around the past. But remembering how things were is a way of seeing the now. The way a loved one looked at us or touched us is as much about what is gone, as it is about what is right here in this holy now.

I’ve been listening to Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, and while I’ve been a long-time devotee of her shame research and how it can be a powerful antidote to perfectionism, I needed a refresher on what shame means and looks like. Brown identified a key factor of shame as exceptionalism and isolation resulting from a feeling of “I’m bad” as opposed to “I did something bad” and then not wanting anyone to know that we feel that shame. We, feeling as if we are inherently bad, want to reserve the tar-like ick of it for ourselves. “Aren’t I bad enough?!”

Listening last night, I resolved to try sharing and identifying my shame this week to both myself and the people closest to me; to be curious instead of afraid, to feel part of a human experience instead of unworthy of it. Sharing is a sacred antidote. Bit by bit becoming more self-aware of how shame still tangles itself around me, I trust that I can become more empathetic to myself and others. That’s the goal which each time I attempt, I’m rewarded.

Today, ironically, I went on a little shame tour. After tackling lots of important tasks, I started wondering about my online presence. I should have stopped there. Something else Brené said, citing research, was this,

“Unwanted identity is one of the primary elicitors of shame"

I googled my name and found all kinds of old-Ashley, and past Ashley Thalman Photography content (I think it’s important to distinguish the fact that we are NOT our brands). A huge majority of the images my name pulled were old, like 2006 old. Looking back did not bring feeling of proud progression- not at all.

Photos with actions that have worn out, photos of my old home, evidence of a woman trying too hard, remnants of blind perfectionism and obsessive cleaning. There it was, my old life. With my hair painted red, making image that had too room up top that I took while going for “modern”. My past is out there, pimpled with tightly clumped groups on temple steps and wordy words that I still can’t shake for clarity. Ugh. Proof of everything I didn’t know back then yes, but so much proof of how messy and unworthy I still am. That is shame.

I went deeper and deeper into the old images. If I had been alert and intentional, I would have literally heard PROCEED TO THE ROUTE from Brene or or Matthew or Errin or my tarot reader Zina or the voice of the intentional me. Instead my eyes painted rolling patterns on my scull and I clicked and clicked and clicked looking at images of that old me. It was getting old. But just one more click…

And then the photos of my toddler kids surfaced and I felt like something had me at the throat.

Like every new parent, I was unprepared for motherhood. Everyone is underprepared. And even though I try to grow by knowing what I know, and forgive myself of the rest, I forget. And in this morning moment, scrolling and clicking, my shame came for me.

The shame of not being enough, of not being prepared, of not being smart and patient. The shame of making perceivably irreparable mistakes in motherhood and life that got on everyone I loved. The biggest ache that the then-Ashley bore, was never fully allowing herself joy because she was so afraid of joy vanishing. She kept it at bay with doing. Doing, organizing, hiking, counting calories, staying up too late. Avoidance.

And yes, that gone-girl had wildly happy and contented moments too. But I couldn’t see that this morning. I couldn’t see beyond what I wasn’t to what I brilliantly was.

So today, with shame at my throat, photos from an old Flickr gallery in my eyes, and a to-do list that is begging for my attentions, I followed Brené’s fresh words and I admitted my shame to my people. I wrote Errin and Mathew both telling them where I sat. I shared my regret and sorrow and harsh critiques of myself. Matthew reminded me about forgiveness and not making myself wrong and Errin gracefully called bullshit and told me to knock this crap off. Errin and I raised our newborns together and she sees the forest for the trees when I don’t.

So I dusted myself off and I refused to let my old shame habit devour me alone like it did back then. I’m still shocked that it comes, and sometimes I feel like WHY DID I DO ALL THIS WORK ONLY FOR THIS TO COME BACK? But this ride, with its insane diversions, reminds me that when I forget, rediscovery is an awaiting gift. Deepening cycles, circles, and seasons are the realities of growth. There is no arrival, life is not linear, I’m not going anywhere.

After speaking the pain and being heard, after sobbing and a load of laundry, I looked at the photos again. I looked for evidence of the real me, looking for the private raw beauty of my life as a mother, as a human, as a wife, as a friend, and as a hard-working learner, she’s there. It’s all there.

1/11/2019- Weekly Braindump and Review

Art and Community-

I posed for a figure drawing class at Simple Life Studio . It was a life wish and the circumstances were perfect. Maybe at some point I’ll share the photos I snagged of the beautiful sketches, each different in their lines, interpretations, and perspectives. I left with tremendous respect for the ancient act of sitting, being seen, seeing, showing up and sharing the gift of representation through art. And for women in art who work to know the world in little glimpses that sketch purpose and beauty.

Listened-

Good Life Project with Samin Nosrat

Takeaway-

-At 10 years you begin to know what you are doing. This is so real. The last few months have really clarified my work for me.

-If we throw ourselves entirely and unabashedly into a projects and passions then we won’t have ourselves to regret or blame, regardless of the outcomes of that effort. The work, and our unique vision of that work matters and communicates something singular.

Super Soul Sunday with Glennon Doyle

Takeaway-

- The feeling of deep knowing only reveals the next step, not the 10 year plan that will become from taking that next step.

-I found this to be particularly striking as a reflection of what it means to be a human, specifically a woman, “I’ve felt split in two my entire life. There is the part of me on the outside that is saying the things that I am supposed be say, like, ‘I’m fine’. And then there is the part of me on the inside that is scared and lonely….We are all truth tellers…and it is very hard to hear the truth from a woman…and since negative emotions are less acceptable for a woman, we end up sometimes telling our truth in different ways than words, sometimes dangerous ways. Everyone tells the truth with something…which is why it is so powerful when you can integrate those two selves and tell the story of what’s going on on the inside with your words.”

- “Everyone is afraid of their pain but what we should be afraid of is the easy button- that is where suffering comes in. Pain is mandatory, it is what teaches us. Suffering is optional.”

Watched-

Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown Episode of Newfoundland. Bourdain’s contributions were great and he was such a perfect heart-filled asshole, I am so glad we have so much content from his voice and vision of the world. As for the episode, it is filled with forest and intention that communicated such a beautiful culinary and cultural story of Newfoundland. Images of rustic surfaces studded with crystal glass, wine chilled in rivers- it was dripping with naturalist romance made only the more contrasted by the Motley Crew telling the story. Something achingly nostalgic and ancestral was spoken about self-reliance and a connection between what we are and what we eat and how that sacred process of taking into our bodies something that has its own distinct form happens.

There have been many times in the last year, since moving to a low-income, working-class neighborhood that I have realized how reliant we are and, therefore, how wrong we have “it'“. It being living, and feeling connected and satisfied. How close we are to ruin and hunger, being as entirely reliant on trucking, highways, and low wage farming, water as we are. It felt right to see the rejuvenating cod in the cold ink water after learning about the destruction of those waters by heavy nets that dragged the ocean (I cringe at the untold bycatch) enacting a moratorium on the cultural of cod.

Ultraviolet Progress-

Negotiated a new floor for the studio, this time polyurethane. We are delayed and that occasionally leaves me feeling like we have failed something that hasn’t begun. But it will begin and Ogden is going to love our production studio. I feel faithful to the original ideas through and it has been miraculous how the money, time, and resources have fit and happened. Despite that, I am at that point in creating the studio where all woman who have given birth have been, in transition. I am that creator that wants to go home to avoid the demand of the delivery, that ring of fire edges closer. Anyone who wants to do big shit has to deal with the contrast of opposition. It’s weird in fact, and I have so many stories to share at some point, provided that I can fight my imposter syndrome back enough to get through writing this one-off post so that I can write the next one. My break this morning came in the form of seeing myself a few steps ahead, all having turned out to be the ennobling canvas we hope it will be for not only ourselves but for other people willing to brave the comical terror of delivery and creation.

Read

I started to read “The River”, from Gary Paulsen’s Hachet series to the kids and it is so beautifully written. I wonder if I will ever be the writer I want to be.

I am still reading Women Who Run with Wolves (it is so dense and resets my soul course making it hard to read at a normal pace).

I am also reading Hold Still by Sally Mann.

Ate

Made Mandy’s Shepards Pie which reminds me, I’ve been vegan for 3 years now. I still want some moose meat in Newfoundland though.

Laughed About

TV dinners, marketing

Parenthood

I love being with my children while they are in the process of discovery. The frustrated loping of laces, the goose egg first steps, the triumph of speaking bravely, the depths that come as they (and us with them) learn to sit in pain or say goodbye. They grow to face questions and realities that so often don't have formulaic answers and it is a gift to sit in what we don’t know to develop what we do.

Dotter and her class are reading, "The Watsons Go to Birmingham" and this evening, after dinner, she came to me with her hand on her heart,

"Mom, no one in my class is racist! Today we read about Martin Luther King getting shot and everyone was so sad."

Her experience is complicated with firsts! To feel sorrow and shock as bonding preteen peers, to learn about the heaviness of the ongoing civil rights movement, to examine what it means to be white, to learn about art, race, war, politics, abuse, sexism, love, equality, hatred, forgiveness- these are all necessary and sensitive topics. But to feel that no on is racist is a hopeful and harrowing thing.