Titled Self Control, this group of work embodies (pun intended) so much of what I worked through and am still working through around our constructed femininity. It may be nearly a decade old, but I see it more clearly than I did even then.

I created this work in grad school, which is a funny place. At 22, I found myself in a new world, that had totally different expectations of what it looked like to perform. Grad school had very little in common with how I’d been operating up to that point.

I use the words, performance and operate very purposefully. That’s what I was doing. I began to realize, that for the first time, my external presence was a performative act. And that much, if not all of the femininity followed suit.

Simply by being born female, I was asked to act female. And I had always done it, and well. I took great stock (and still do) in my external presentation doing a lot of the talking for me.

But what I came to realize was that in this new world, I was not measured higher based on how well I dressed. In fact, my version of femininity seemed to be viewed as frivolous. While I knew I wasn’t frivolous, what was the end result of my external presentation??

So I started to explore in video.

I wanted to visceral, real reaction to my body performing femininity, something you can only gather in continuous footage. My first successful video piece was call Jump Rope. I went to La James, got my hair and makeup done as garishly as possible, bought a 90s prom dress and wore a crown, then proceeded to jump rope for 30 minutes, with no more than 5 breaths between rope swings. The facade deteriorated quickly. I melted and morphed into a disaster and as the rope was outside the frame, you saw my effort, but not the cause, creating the metaphor for the external pressures for feminine performance.

From there, I examined more expectations like posture. In this video, I stack books on my head, an outdated measure of perfect posture. What you can’t see from this angle is that my back arm is hold up the books, and it’s not until I try to remove the support that you see how impossible the task is. I have you fooled in the beginning, believing that I can manage it all, take on it all, but the truth is, I was hiding my true support, and once that facade broke, everything fell with it.

Next up was examining our relationship with dual expectation for females to have long, luscious head hair but absolutely no other hair to speak of. In this video, I brush my long hair, counting to 100. 10 strokes in, another audio layer is added on top and you hear my conversation with my waxer, receiving a Brazilian. You hear me yelp as I go through the painful process of having hair waxed off one of the most sensitive parts of my body. Complying with contemporary standards of sexual femininity.

It was during this piece that a professor spoke up. He believed I couldn’t both participate in the act and critique it-- that this stance was hypocritical and didn’t move the conversation forward.

This was a defining moment in my life.

I believed vehemently he was WRONG and I told him so. I said, as humans we are frequently faced with situations that we, if we stopped to think about the ramifications, would not condone, but group think is powerful. Women and their relationship with hair has been handed down for generations. We have NO CHOICE but to have a relationship with it. And as a female, navigating this world, I was both conforming and critiquing my action. As I woman I know, that the phrase, pain in beauty did not come out of thin air. It comes from centuries of women KNOWING they should not have to agent their bodies to gain physical approval, but doing to anyway, because social acceptance trumps decent where the food chain is concerned.

This brings me back to Self Control, my photo series that put the cherry on top of my thesis work. These images were meant to show the casing--the reality of wearing “control top” anything. As women, we squeeze, tuck, pluck and form, only to be left with the reality of the situation when we return. At the end of the night, when we’re home and the heels are off, this is reality. To what extent has this self control benefited us? Has it taken from our authenticity in ways we could never verbalize?

When I walked out of my grad program, I walked away from making art like this. There were several reasons, but the biggest was impact. Now, I’m able to talk about this work and these concepts in front of you all and make an impact, but I didn’t see a clear path between making this work and having the impact I desire.

Where I did see an impact was showing people how truly magical it was to be seen.

I moved to Iowa to start Ivory House with one goal - to help EVERYONE feel comfortable and confident in front of the camera. I’d been putting myself on the chopping block for years in less than flattering ways. While I didn’t feel the need to be that audacious, I did want to inspire people to be extra, get outside of themselves, be more, say more, create more, and show up more.

I haven’t stopped making work. It just looks different now. This photo - this is a performance. In grad school, I learned the basics of how to create an impact and I’ve simply taken to the streets and mobilized. This photo reminds me of the girl with perfect posture who didn’t yet know how to support herself. She didn’t yet have the substance to say no, to stand up for herself, to create her own destiny. The woman at the gas pump knows where she’s headed and she’s bringing you with her.

This photo calls people to action. Stop being your performance. Be YOU in every scenario in everyday. I can’t help but think of the girl that jump rope a decade ago while her face melted off in front of the camera.

I now spend my time giving other people space. Promoting other people’s version of strong and bold, creating space for other people to step into themselves.

I learned a long time ago: if you can see yourself, I mean REALLY see yourself for the reality of who you are, what you could be and what is already innately you, then you have a fighting chance of making a huge impact on this beautiful world— and I wouldn’t have it any other way.