How a dead fish helped me find my voice as an Artist.
Covid had just started. The world was taking health advice from a billionaire that invented computer software. And I wasn’t doing very well. So I grabbed a dead fish, took my clothes off, and photographed myself. This image would go on to win me Gold in an International Professional Photography Competition - The Portrait Masters.
The fish, or really the oily skeleton that remained, had been collected out of a tiny river in northern Michigan where our cabin is. I remember finding it and being shocked at the shape and rigidity that hides within the scales of these flexible and slimy animals. I took it home because, well, that’s what I do. I collect bones, or rather I collect an array of intriguing things I find in nature- bones, rocks, nests, feathers that might get displayed through out my home, placed in my yard, used in crafts, or like this guy- sit in my garage for over a year waiting for his calling.
I don’t know why I ran to the fish that day. A lot of my creative process comes from my subconscious. I follow a feeling. I trust what I connect with in that very moment even if it does’t make sense to me. I just know it feels right. With the world feeling like it was imploding and me feeling like I was on the brink of losing my shit- the fish felt right. I stripped my clothes off because, well, what do you wear with a dead fish? And I hit the shutter.
Earlier that day I had read: “Life will not return to normal until a coronavirus vaccine is gotten out to basically the entire world.” The realization of what they were saying hit me hard.
And I lost it.
The fish image was actually one of two images that landed on my instagram later that day, along with some screenshots of statistics that I had read prior to picking up the camera. The other image was me taking a naked selfie on my phone. The stats were:
-9 million people die worldwide each year of starvation
-Over 60% of those starving are women, who have limited access to resources because of the patriarchal societies in which they live.
Starvation:(Source: https://www.wfp.org/news/world-wealth-9-million-people-die-every-year-hunger-wfp-chief-tells-food-system-summit:)
Stats that have been released since my original post:
In the 4 years total that Covid was recorded (Jan 2020 - April 2024) we lost 7 million people worldwide.
Covid: (Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/)
All I could think about were all the ways people die every day- cancer, heart disease, starvation and if the powers that be “couldn’t figure out” how to solve those issue while simultaneously making it legal to poison our food with pesticides, encouraging all you can eat deep fried buffets, and throwing out nearly expired food instead of donating it thanks to capitalism, how were they going to save us from this new, deadly, mystery flu… and why… why try so hard to save us this time? Because statistically speaking this virus was proving to be far less of a killer than any of those 3.
My intention was to say- hey, while you’re all so self absorbed staring at yourselves and your screens all day 25,000 people in the world are dying of starvation every day. And the government wants to shoot us up? The government doesn’t care about them or us. This makes no sense. Look up from your screens.
But I didn’t come right out and say any of that because, well, that would have been scary.
My intentions and voice got lost in the post, and that’s the interesting thing about Art. Unless you release it with a clear Artist Statement defining exactly what the piece means people will interpret it in their own way based on their own life experiences, traumas, dreams, biases, assumptions, and even judgements of you. Should we as Artists define our Art, or should we let the viewer have that opportunity? That’s a hard question to answer. I think there’s a time and place for both. But what happened next (due to my lack of clear verbal skills but strong imagery) was surprising!
At a time when the entire world was incredibly divided over a collectively shared experience, people with varying different views on the matter were coming together to comment on my post and there surfaced a common thread that had nothing to do with anyone’s opinions on politics, religion, race, wealth, or even the pandemic. We could all simply agree- Damn, it shouldn’t be normal for 9 million people a year to starve to death.
And I couldn't have asked for a better response. People coming together.
Did my initial opinions get lost? Yes.
At the time was I happy about that? Initially no. But then I had mixed emotions. I was sad my voice was lost. I was thrilled the post resonated with people the way it did.
Today do I regret not saying exactly what I meant? No. What I would have regretted more than anything is acting like I knew better than someone else about something we all knew nothing about.
Because at the end of the day, even now, I can post sources, links, quotes and more but I can not tell you with ABSOLUTE certainty that those facts are THE TRUTH above all truths, regardless of where they came from, because it’s outside of myself. We can fight “facts” with “facts” all day and not get anywhere.
For nearly 2 years I shared insights, articles, “facts”, and statistics on my social media and in my podcast that I was trying to build. Topics ranged from the virus, to the vaccine, to religion, to self care practices, and more. I used the method of sharing outside sources to cope, express, converse, and in some instances in hopes to sway.
I used that method because really I just didn’t know how to use my own voice.
And that’s where I really started to lose myself.
This was the beginning of me losing my voice, and also the beginning of me finding my most authentic voice yet.
Publishing a podcast episode was impossible. Writing a blog felt like a research paper. And the more and more I did any of it the more and more I became incredibly disconnected from my own voice and any passion I had for sharing at all. It was also becoming obvious that in that climate whatever I said could offend someone, or worse, someone I cared about, and I wasn’t about to destroy relationships I cared about by sharing something I couldn’t even fully defend as factual, or even cared to defend at this point, so what I would share was so watered down half of it didn’t even make any sense and the other half was probably boring as shit.
It all just got exhausting, and so I just stopped. And I loved the quiet. For a while… More on that in part 2 coming soon.
I know now I have no interest in sharing facts as a way of expressing myself, trying to be understood, or when trying to spark change. What I have learned is the only thing I can share with absolute certainty and hold high as factual information is my own lived life experience. My stories. I may never publicly share a fact ever again. But I will never stop telling stories.
I believe stories, either told through Art or as Art themselves, can be just as impactful as reports, studies, and statistics, if not more, because they give us the gift of looking past cold information, sometimes information we don’t even fully understand, sometimes information we can’t even trust, and they take us on an emotional journey that reminds us just how complex it is to be a human and live this life. It’s something we can all understand. As the Artist we can say so much without putting anything into a clear cut sentence. As the viewer we can feel it, be moved by it, without needing to logically comprehend it. And if we’re lucky, we might all just accidentally agree with each other in the end. And that’s when real change happens.
I opened up and shared some of my experiences with Covid in this blog and how it lead me down a dark road of anxiety and PTSD. The nice thing about sharing my story and not articles is I know now no one can link a source or study on that experience and tell me I’m wrong or it was fake. They can try. But they can never take away from me my experience and the impact it had. It is my truth.
They can’t fuck with my truth. And so I know they also can’t fuck with me when I tell my stories and use my voice. And that understanding gave me the confidence to speak again.
Looking back, what’s interesting about that dead fish is it didn’t need to be backed up by facts or news articles. The dead fish and my naked body, the way my face contorted in pain and how my arms longed for the meat that was no longer on the skeleton - those were facts enough. They spoke loudly. It told a story of its own. It told a different version to everyone who saw it. And unknowingly it was telling mine better than even I could with words at the time.
I was afraid. I was pissed off. I was tired. I was confused. I pitied the living. I pitied the dying. I wanted to understand. I couldn’t understand. I felt like I wasn’t being understood. I didn’t understand other people. I was in pain reaching for something and only finding more pain. And I didn't know how to say any of that out loud. So I’m saying it now.
It was important for me to tell this story of the fish first, when it was just me and a stinky carcass, not a Gold Awarded piece of Art.
The entire experience surrounding creating and posting the image was pivotal in me eventually finding my “voice” and place as an Artist and even an Educator- and that is one of a story teller, not a fact checker.
I hope you stick around when I release Part 2 next week of how submitting and winning the Golden Fish was its own lesson in truly trusting myself!
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