In February 2007, I was taking an art class where we read Peter Plagens’ essay Whose Art Is It Anyway? I got stuck on this idea that art does not always need to be comfortable. In my response paper, I wrote about how sometimes being offended can pull us out of our box and make us think differently.
That night, I realized I had never really made anything I thought might push my own boundaries. So around 4 a.m., I took my camera into a rarely used stairwell and started taking nude self-portraits.
Looking at the photos now, they hardly seem offensive. But at the time, they felt like a huge step for me. I was trying something new, testing what I thought art could be, and getting more comfortable using my own body in the work.
