What inspired your title, We’ll Tiptoe to the Sun? How does it connect to the themes of your work?
The title for me comes from a feeling of reaching toward something unreachable. It was partially inspired by Prototype by André 3000 in OutKast, a song that carries this otherworldly, almost magical quality of love and possibility. That same sense of pushing beyond what is tangible is present in my work. I worked with and exhibited images my mother took for her BFA thesis work, and I felt like this investigation of identity was an effort to grasp at something that was out of my reach. The images, especially my mother’s, for me, exist in a space of transience, between past and present, memory and reality. We’ll tiptoe to the sun kind of spoke to a delicate yet intentional act of moving between these spaces, especially in relation to my understanding of my mother’s gaze as it relates to my blackness.
Can you talk about your mother’s influence on your practice, both in photography and in shaping your understanding of your identity?
I think working with images from my mother’s thesis for my own was surreal, I felt incredibly lucky to have access to her negatives to scan, edit, and print them how I wanted. My mother has always been a narrator, whether through her writing or photography, her presence in the way she positioned me in front of her camera always interested me. As a white woman, photographing her black children in these abandoned landscapes was something I became more critical of after coming to school for photo and really questioning her gaze as it affected my brother and I’s understanding of blackness.
She photographed me as a child, often against these abandoned landscapes. In revisiting her images and using her Holga camera, I felt as though the landscapes represented my idea of blackness, and in her turning us away from them, it’s as if there was a barrier for my brother and me to access our blackness, if that makes sense. Facing us towards her lens is what prompted me to use her camera and meet her gaze with my own. So it feels like I’m not just looking at the past, but I’m reintroducing my brother and me in a different context.
In terms of identity, she’s shaped so much of my understanding of Blackness—I think especially in the ways I’m so much of her but also so incredibly different. The ways in which we differ, yet remain tethered to one another, are central to my work.
How does using your mother’s Holga camera influence the way you see and capture your subjects?
The Holga had a softness that was unpredictable and really fun. It’s such a cheap toy camera, but using my mothers it was extra fragile, the edges were taped together with the same tape she used over a decade ago. It definitely forced me to slow down and to surrender to chance, which is something I loved in this one (frame skipping/overlapping). There’s something about using the same camera she used, an extension of her gaze that I was now able to hold in my hands. Also, the imperfections of the Holga, the blur, and the vignetting mirror the way my memory operates.
You mention a sense of "twoness" and world-traveling in your statement; how does that idea shape the way you position yourself within your work?
The idea of “twoness” comes from W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of double consciousness, but also Mariana Ortega’s concept of world-traveling, the ability to move between different identities, perspectives, and spaces, whether it’s from instinct, survival, resistance, or just habit. I’m constantly aware of myself existing in this in-between, between generations influenced by my mother and my paternal grandmother, between ways of seeing, between past and present. I feel like my work reflects that fluidity. The way I showed my images, the way I use black and white, and even the fragmented way I write—these are all ways I explore this space.
You referenced thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois and Mariana Ortega. How do their philosophies shape your approach to identity and self-perception in your work?
Du Bois' idea of double consciousness, the sense of seeing oneself through the eyes of others, was directly influential in the ways I made sense of my mother and I’s relationship, how she sees me, how I see myself, and therefore how I see the way she sees me is entirely different. I took a phenomenology course last year and discovered Ortega’s concept of world-traveling; this added another layer to what inspired my thesis, allowing me to see movement between identities as an act of agency rather than just conflict. I also wondered what or how the landscapes would shift or overlap, in relation to the act of blinking or taking a photograph. Their ideas kind of informed the way I navigate the act of creating—how I am seen, how I see myself, and how that vision shifts across time and space, especially from childhood forward.
Your writing and photography seem deeply intertwined—how do these two media speak to each other in your creative process?
I often write in fragments, the same way my images feel like pieces of a larger, nonlinear memory. The process is intuitive—sometimes the writing comes first, sometimes the images. But they always exist in conversation, I hope they fill in the spaces the other leaves open.
How does the book pair with your installation in the gallery?
The book is a combination of my thesis images with a writing assignment from thesis writing, where we created a text work of found material. I was drawn to annotations in books and what causes someone to underline or make a note of something. I had just dropped off film, I think, and was walking, and saw book pages lining the street. I saw 2 or 3 at first, and then as I kept walking, I saw many more. I walked up to one and noticed handwriting under the text, and realized all of them were written on, so I walked back and picked up as many pages as I could. They were all very dirty, but I just knew I wanted to read what was underlined and written out. So, I compiled all of the text from these book pages into a longer body of work with other text from various readings I was doing for thesis research. It was funny to me because the things underlined and written all had to do with play consciousness and how a creative taps into their full potential when they source from their inner Child’s instinct to play. I feel as though running around a street in Gowanus picking up these pages was my own form of play.
But yeah, I combined the text with images from my thesis that I found incredibly hard to part with, I understood I needed to make a tighter selection for what went on the wall but I felt like having this book, with the text peice was a perfect remedy for me and I really enjoyed making it. I also have gotten really good feedback on the book, so it was nice to know that it reached people just as much as the images on the wall did.
Are there any other artists or writers who have influenced your practice?
Some other artists I was looking at included Ruth Padel, she’s a writer, a piece of text in my book came from her book on migration, titled “we’re all from somewhere else.” I’ve always looked to photographers like Latoya Ruby Frasier, Keisha Scarville, and Ming Smith. I also adore the work of Zora Murff; I found his book, “True Colors (or Affirmations in Crisis),” early last semester, and fell completely in love with it. He mentions the challenges of finding belonging in places not made for him. It was something that resonated with me. There was a confrontation with the space in between my mother and me that I faced, and there was recognition for that disconnect in his work that I was inspired by. The way he combined his images with found material was also very inspiring. His writing, with the way he talked about blackness, I feel like it influenced the way I combined found text with my images in my book.
Has working on this project changed the way you see yourself or your family? What have you discovered or learned from making these images?
I made portraits of my parents, and even though I photographed them last year for another project, these images felt different, like I was looking at them differently. I honestly don’t know what the difference is yet, but I feel like the ideas I’ve been drawn to this year have changed the way I photograph them and how I think about our relationship in images, if that makes any sense.
I was also able to photograph my brother, in the motel image at the end. Photographing him was significant to me and necessary. I really wanted to photograph him in a way that my mother didn’t. I didn’t want him to be gazing towards the camera or turned away from the landscape. I actually didn’t want his face to be visible in the image at all. I wanted him to be embedded within the space, so I posed him kind of hidden from my lens, with only part of him being shown. I asked him to stand in the doorway of an abandoned motel room, I thought it was kind of funny and strange. This place of transience and temporary stay was left, all of the rooms were accessible, and there were remnants of people trespassing. I felt like it reflected the state of constant transience and was something I was intrigued by in relation to the state of in-between I mentioned earlier.
Also, I had learned that my great uncle John hitchhiked to California when he was 33, this was in the 60s, and knowing he was a black man, had no money to his name, and didn’t speak to his family for years, made me question what he was looking for. I photographed my grandmother holding his ID and a letter of him becoming my great great aunt’s POA, which are both in the book. She kept all of his things that he carried with him exactly as they were years ago. I think his curiosity to just leave and go across the country is something I relate to my identity, and something I connect to themes in my work, as well as the title, that reaching for something that’s unreachable.
What challenges did you face while creating We’ll Tiptoe To the Sun?
I think the biggest challenge was figuring out how to photograph these large ideas I was so invested in. It started out very straight, just documenting my hometown again, kind of like my work last year, and I remember feeling very stuck. I didn’t want to make images that felt so similar, so the introduction of my mother’s images and her Holga opened up a new way of navigating these themes. Thankfully, I was continuing to work in black and white, I felt it allowed me to collapse the time that existed between my mother’s photographs and my own images.
I remember making a lot of images with the Holgas that were really expressive, but kind of messy in ways they all kind of blurred into one. I felt very confused for a while on what I was doing, I feel like during winter break and some other trips home, I was able to steady the images and find the throughline between with my mothers work, the use of the holga, and then incorporating the way I take images in with the photographs of the landscapes and my family.
What’s next for you? Do you think you’ll continue with this body of work?
While I am ready for a break following graduation, I don’t think I am done with these themes and exploring my mother’s gaze. I feel very drawn to the ways I worked with text and my images within my book, so I’m excited to keep working on that. I also would love to explore self-portraiture as it’s something I didn’t really get to delve into, and I think it could be interesting in contrast with the way my mother photographed me and how I would attempt to photograph myself. Maybe that would relate to this, or maybe it would manifest into something entirely different. I have no idea.