Lauren Lyon interviews Kate Fowler

L: This is Lauren Lyon interviewing Kate Fowler

K: Hello….

L: About Kate as a human, as an artist, as a thinker, as a lover…

K: Interrupts a couple times and giggles.

L: So you’re married, right?

K: I’m married. To a man named Robert Scott.

L: How long have you been married?

K: One year as of September 24^th, that’s our wedding anniversary.

L: How long were you together before you got married?

K: Five years before we got married.

L: That’s a long time…

K: That is a long time.

L: You’ve taken a lot of pictures of Robert.

K: Naked, clothed, laying in the grass, laying on the beach, laughing, crying…

L: Crying?!

K: No, there are no pictures of him crying.

L: This is supposed to be honest!

K: There are picture of him swinging, though.

L: What are your favorite pictures of Robert?

K: Hmmm… I like this one picture from Finland where he’s laying in the bed and the sun is coming in over his head and he looks really sleepy. And I like any pictures where his eyes are close because he’s got this really distinct black line from his eyelashes and its really pretty and kind of like a curve. There’s this picture of him where one hand is over his face like this and he’s smiling and looking down and you can only see half his face and it’s the cutest picture. I took that on my Pentax point and shoot camera. Its terrible, but I love it.

L: Have you ever thought about doing a series about you and Robert?

K: No. Laughs No I haven’t!

L: Well I know you’re doing your anniversary photo every year…

K: Yeah, I know, but I just…

L: Do you feel like people who make work about their relationship always do it about something sad or complicated?

K: No, I think there’s really beautiful work. Like, I’m really curious about Sally Mann’s work that she’s been making with her husband. Its been like 5 years that she’s been working on it, but I think its more about the connectedness and the unity between them. Rather than discordance. But no, I’m just not interested in it. There are pictures of Robert and I together that I’ve taken with the self-timer.

I, in general, have never thought about making a project about myself, visually.

L: Hm… Well, you made a project about your family… Family ties?

K: Yeah, but its not about, like, physically—me. Or the idea of me, either.

L: Why not?

K: I’m more interested in the people I’m connected to. I don’t know, because I understand myself. I’m not interested in myself, really. Its not very exciting to think about myself or ponder myself. I don’t feel like there are any gaping holes in my awareness of myself that I need to discover. I kind of know who I am.

Nothing—there’s nothing to be found. I wouldn’t be very happy looking at pictures of myself.

L: Yeah, but you sort of did when you made work about your relationship with your [twin] brother—that’s also about you.

K: Yeah, I think a lot of work is about things connected to myself. But not directly about me. I mean that work is more about the idea of space than about either one of us.

L: The idea of space in terms of being separated from him? Distance?

K: Mhm. Or that weird kind of phenomenon of loving a person when there’s nothing that really should connect the two of you emotionally other than family ties.

L: What’s the weirdest dream job that you have that no one would suspect? That has nothing to do with what you do now? Or even, like, a photography endeavor that’s totally different. Like mine, would have been aerial cinematography.

K: Really!? But I would suspect that! So you’re lying…

L: I tried.

K: Could it not be photography?

L: Yeah.

K: I think it would be really great to open a Bed & Breakfast. That’s something I’d really like to do when I’m 55, 65 years old.

L: What would it be like?

K: I want it to be in the mountains.

L: Where?

K: Ya know, in my brain its in Rappahannock County, VA. But I think its just because its what I know. Ya know. I hope I kind of reach out farther, but the idea of being that far away from family permanently is weird. I want it to be and old, yellow farmhouse, and I want to live there and I want people to have to come downstairs and eat dinner with us. That would be really fun. I could teach people how to cook.

L: That’s cool. Cooking lessons…

K: Robert and I have talked about how it would be cool to open up a place like the Tea Bazaar in Charlottesville. It would just be kind of like a cool, fun place to own.

L: You guys like having people hang out in your living space. Its funny that you can feel alone while living with your partner. Because you feel alone right now when you’re not living with three other roommates.

K: Well, because Robert and I kind of function on the same schedule most of the time. We come home at the same time, we leave at the same time. Its weird when you come home and you can feel that the space has been empty. When you know that for like 10 hours nothing has happened. And you don’t smell food, the lights aren’t on, the heat’s not on. Its just an empty vacant space and your animals are lonely. And they’re sad.

I like coming into a space and seeing people working on stuff. Their homework, or whatever. They’re cooking food or talking. Just hearing it makes me happy, even if I have to be in my bedroom focusing on something.

L: You’re going to have a big family. Maybe…

K: Yeah I hope so. I don’t want like, 5 kids. Three kids maybe. Two and one adopted.

L: You have a good relationship with your mom. And its always really cool for me to see you talking to your mom about your work. And you guys understanding each other.

K: laughs

L: That’s really rare! I don’t talk to my family about my work at all.

K: Really?

L: Nothing… barely anything.

K: Your mom, I bed she would.

L: This isn’t my interview…

K: Your mom wants to know about your work. My mom is funny—it makes sense that she would talk about it because she the most overly romantic woman in the world. I got an email from her the other day that slightly pissed me off, made me jealous, and made me laugh all at the same time. Because it was like, “My Dearest Kate, I write this as I sit overlooking mount Olympus in Greece. The fog is lifting and its beautiful. I’m drinking wine, the people are great…” She’s in Greece right now and everything she writes, its as if she’s William Faulkner. Putting this down to go into the history of a southern lady traveling to Greece and writing to her daugher thousands of miles away… Its very romantic.

L: Ya’ll are both romantic.

K: Nu-uh! I never say those things, I’ve never wrote like that a day in my life!

L: You… are. You do romantic things, and take romantic pictures.

K: I’m scared that I’ll be like that… WHAT!?

L: Yeah. Its true. The bad scans, all the dust, the lens flare…

K: Hey, man! I was 18 years old! When you don’t know how to use a camera those things are really exciting, you kind of rely on them when you don’t have much going on, otherwise.

L: Its magic. We’re at ten minutes… I’m trying to think of something I might not know about you…

K: Hmm… That’s gonna be hard! Laughs

L: What project are you most excited about right now? What project would you most want to work on if you had unlimited amounts of time and money?

K: Well, Nitro.

L: If you could work on any project ever—your dream project. That’s Nitro?

K: Its hard to think in that way, because I don’t have some like “big huge thing” that I’d really want to do if I had a lot of money. Because its mostly centered around where I live—the things I’m most connected to. So I wouldn’t have to fly very far. But I do want to work on this, and I’d like to work with other people on their projects.

L: What do you find more fulfilling about this project than others?

K: Its really challenging for me. Its a completely different mode of working than I’ve ever experienced. I mean to just go to a place and have to start from scratch. And literally meet people on the street and try to form connections. And also, so much of the information is completely new to me and so much of the legal practice and trying to figure out what it means is new to me. So its kind of like detective work at the same time, which is really fun. Its exciting. And I’m passionate about the topic, and so many people I’ve met—I care about them a lot. They’re good people.

L: You, more than anyone I know, likes to form close relationships to the people you make work about.

K: Haha, its probably not a good thing! Because I always make sad work. So its like witnessing terribly things happening to the people you’re increasingly feeling more at home with. I hate the thought of something happening to Mike, God… I mean, how could you not form a close relationship with those people?

L: Some people aren’t good at that.

K: Yeah.

L: You’re really good at—you’re a very warm and accepting personality and I think people could easily find themselves drawn to you or very comfortable with you at least. And that’s definitely a strong point. I don’t think many people have that.

K: In some ways…

L: Some photographers are notoriously cold.

K: I was thinking how different the work would be if I didn’t really care what the person would think if they saw it.

L: How would it change?

K: There was one girl that I took a picture of for the abortion project. The girl standing by the river.

L: Describe the photo.

K: It’s a picture of her wearing her bikini. It was not my idea. But she wanted to wear it because she had just been pregnant and had taken pennyroyal in order to terminate the pregnancy on her own. And thought that it would still be visible, that she had been pregnant, which is really scary because I think it was a later term pregnancy.

L: What’s pennyroyal?

K: It’s a poison from a plant extract. Its something women have used since the 1700’s to induce abortion.

L: Whoa.

K: Yeah, its really scary. And I think she ordered it on the internet. You basically poison yourself in small doses over a two week period. So she had just done that and I had a hard time talking to her because I didn’t agree with her mentality in a lot of ways. But, when I took the picture, I knew that she really wouldn’t like it, and it’s the first person that I haven’t been in touch with to discuss which picture they would prefer. Because I just knew when I took the picture that that’s the one I really wanted to use. Its pretty different from the one she’d prefer, which is the one where her boyfriend is hugging her and leaning against a tree.

L: Two very different photos… haha. They’ll make you think completely different things about a person.

K: Mhm… I still think she looks strong in that picture.

L: In a way…

K: Yeah, but I’m definitely not close with any of the subjects in that project at all. Like, distinctly separate from them. And I think you can tell because with all the women I photograph, there’s this slightly odd juxtaposition with their landscape. There’s something just a little bit off balance about it. Which is weird, because it makes it seem like its not a very empathetic project, when it really is a subject matter that I feel [strongly about]… Which is interesting because it seems like I don’t really want to hear these people’s stories, personally, because they make me upset. But in theory, I support their right to have them.

Interview with Lauren Lyon

Interview Begins:

Hello, this is Kate Fowler interviewing Lauren Catherine Thibodeau Lyon, aka Thibby. Could you please tell me your name? 

Lauren Catherine Thibodeau Lyon the 1^st!

Ok, great. Well! Tell me about Portrait as Community.

As a class?

Yes, How do you feel? Why did you decide to take this class?

I decided to take this class because of Zwelethu, honestly.

Why? 

Because I love his work and I was excited to have the opportunity to be in a class with such a distinguished professional… not that you are not, Michael Lease. But, of his caliber, I guess. ...it was also a class that I wanted to take because it would pose a challenge to for me to make work that I’ve never created before. I’ve never done work about any sort of real ideas about a group of people or any...documenting (of) real things in general.

What type of work do you make?

I would describe most of my work as being both analytical and formal, and also sort of poetic.

Describe a piece that you’ve made which fits all of these categories: Analytical, poetic and formal.

I guess one of the most recent series that I've done, printing Van Dykes on fabric... a series of gestures, paired with sort of graphic representations of what those gestures are about. So, a gesture representing an emotion, and secondly, a metaphorical representation of the psycho-sematic  response to that emotion. Which sounds kind of complicated, but in my mind it’s a simple concept. 

So, you went to school originally for nursing?

Well, originally when I went to college out of high-school... I was going to pursue photography. I started off at community college taking graphic design and drawing classes… but, after my friends left to places like Miami, Michigan and New York, it sunk in that I was there without my support system. I began to doubt myself and my ability and drive to pursue photography. So I thought it would be a good idea to do nursing instead. It was a total cop out. While I am interested in science, like I find anatomy, physiology and anatomy really fascinating, it’s just not who I am.

It seems like you’ve always had kind of an interest in deep knowledge of the way your body works in relation to your mind. Do you think that’s true?

Yeah, I mean… I’ve always thought that people don’t know enough about the way their bodies work, but I also think people don’t know enough about the way their emotions work. I don’t know, people just need to figure themselves out.. and understand why things affect them in a certain way. 

Do you think that’s why you create the work you create… as an attempt to figure yourself out?

Yeah, but also, its going along with figuring out how your body works physiologically…Yesterday, we were discussing how people think it’s such a weird and strange thing to go to therapy and start talking with a  counselor, but to me it’s something that I’ve done since I was eight years old. It’s like going to any other doctor for a check-up. So I think my ability to conceptualize my emotions has been pretty strong since I was young. Not necessarily being able to control them, but in understanding them.

How do those physical, kind of tangible representations of your emotions…what role do they play in your relationships? Do you feel like, rather than communicating with people about it, you make these things and that’s your form of communication, or are they just kind of secondary? Or, once you create that work are you not trying to work through those issues anymore?

It took me two bodies of work to work through one particular relationship that I was struggling with… I found that when I was making that work, it was the only way I could make work is if I could make it about that thing. It was all consuming and so hard to think of anything else. You make work about what you know… you write about what you know. So, at that time, it was unfortunately all that I knew… this really stressful struggle in our relationship.

What’s the most important thing that you’ve learned or gained as a photographer in the past two years… either through your education or through your experiences personally? 

To let myself be scared. To recognize a fear of something and just try to demolish it.

Is making work for you scary?

Making work about myself was scary, the idea of doing that was really scary to me. A lot of what I did was very formal, geometric, observational... about... relationships between objects in the world… so yeah, the idea of making work about myself was really strange and scary. I learned a lot from it and now I’m approaching another fear with the Burlesque project… a lot of different fears, actually. Approaching a community that I don’t really know, I get really nervous. Last time I went to shoot I wanted to leave within 15 minutes, but I made myself stick around... I’ve just realized that the power that doing something that you’re scared of has, how much it helps you grow. I feel that way about a lot of things in life, like food. I hate not liking food, so I will eat something until I like it. A couple of weeks ago, I’m proud to say that I finally like pickles.

I love pickles!! Dill Pickles?!  

I don’t know what kind of pickle… it was a Panera Pickle.

That could mean anything…They say that if you eat something ten times, you’ll like it. I don’t like olives. I think I’ve had olives like 150 times in my life.

Black olives, even?! They’re so good…

ANY OLIVE! Any olive in the world, that’s ever existed. It’s terrible.

So if you had to identify yourself as being part of a community, what community would it be? What are your communities?

My mom and my stepdad’s friend circle.. 

What community are they?

The Real Housewives of Roanoke. I’ve always been close with my mom and her circle of friends. I don’t feel connected to a lot of communities. I guess we’re in the lower end of the Richmond photographic arts community, but I’m also sort of involved in a little Illustration community with people who are working on comics and all sorts of things. I did some portraits of them last year in the studio. Other than that, I don’t have any weird hobbies or religious connections. Hopefully I’ll actually become a part of the Burlesque community in some way. I’ve never felt myself to be so inspired and attracted to a certain group of people before…

What is it about this group of people? 

It's something that I can never see myself doing… 

I don’t think that’s true! I’ve seen you break it down in the middle of a dance floor, with only one other person out there.

Yeah, but those are like little… I don’t know! They just have such balls! They’re so brave. It’s just really inspiring to me that there are so many different women, that do it for different reasons. So many different body types… It’s just inspiring… they look so happy and empowered. Before going to my first show I was really weirded out by the idea, but it’s nothing like a strip club where drunk men are just silently, creepily staring at a girl on a pole. There’s a really positive interaction between the audience and the dancer.

Have you ever been to a strip club?

No. Maybe I should for contrast.

Yeah, I was thinking it may be interesting to verify your beliefs.

I don’t think I need to go there to do that, though. I just know it’s a different thing.

So, you’re thinking about performing with the Burlesque group?

Fifteen percent of me can see that as a possibility. I don’t know, we’ll have to see. It will depend… it seems like a really trans-formative experience, going through the class and meeting all of these women. I mean, maybe. I’m definitely going to take the class. But, performing is terrifying. I can only imagine utter humiliation. I’ll just pee my pants on stage. Part of me wants to.

You’re a performer , though. I think of all of the times we’ve done karaoke . You want to be up there, by yourself, you want space to do your thing.

Yeah. I have different characters within me.

Yeah, that’s perfect for Burlesque, right? I do think there’s potential for you to be comfortable doing that since it’s inherently character based.

Yeah, it’s a different self. The stage self. I talked to one girl who said that she didn’t know her instructors real name until she had been taking classes with her for six months. So, you are totally Deanna Danger... 

So who will you be? What’s your name?

I have no idea, I’ll probably just do some silly pun with my last name. 

So, we’re currently at 17 minutes. Some Final Thoughts? What do you stand to gain from this class?...

I think that it’s going to be the first project that I can really get into long term and explore in a lot of different ways. There have been projects that I’ve done before where I tend to be a product thinker. When you only have a semester, you almost have to be that way. I look at this and I’m excited by the idea and the endless possibilities in exploring it, knowing that they’re endless in my mind is really exciting, whereas before it was scary… not knowing how to approach something, and how it’s going to end. I’m kind of a control freak in a lot of ways.

Do you like working alone?

I like working with other people. This is something that I would want to get a lot of people involved in, just because I think the ideas behind it are really important. Ideas dealing with female sexuality and body image.

She’s paddling off into her canoe for the rest of the night… thanks for tuning in, this has been Kate Fowler and Lauren Lyon.

Audio Interview: http://soundcloud.com/quietchannel/interview-with-lauren-lyon

Beth interviews Mark

B: Where did you grow up?

M: Well, that’s a good question. I moved 10 times in my first 11 years, well maybe 9 times. So I moved, and all those were within the DC area, so a lot of it was living in DC, some of it was in Maryland, in various parts. The furthest away from DC I lived was in Cumberland, Maryland, which is really close to the Pennsylvania border like northwest Maryland. But I changed schools pretty much every year.

B: Why did you move so much?

M: I dunno, my parents weren’t in the military or anything. Just, I think jobs, hoping to get a better house here or there. At one point my parents split up, and that was when we were living in DC, and my dad went bankrupt so we had to move outside of the city.

B: What is your family like?

M: My brother is an ex-marine, well he’s a Marine Iraq veteran, who’s really conservative, and spies on China for a living. And my younger brother works for a really conservative law firm, but he’s actually a really liberal person. I mean, liberal in the more contemporary sense of the word I think. But they’re both really smart people. And he’s a lot of fun. We used to go when we were in high school; he was one of my best friends, definitely in high school. I probably hung out with him more than anybody else, maybe not that much but a lot, and we would just go and get coffee until 3 in the morning once or twice a week and just have ridiculous conversations. He’s a good guy. He lives in DC too, so it’s been nice to see him a lot lately. My sister is incredible. She lives in Norway right now, but she’s sort of in school in England, and she’s an animator and an illustrator. I love her, love her to death. And then my dad, he lives in DC and he is an incredibly well intentioned nice man. Well intentioned is probably the best – that encompasses a lot – good and bad. And my mom is really brilliant. She was a ballerina and she has written science textbooks, and has taught all over the world. And she imparted none of that grace from her dancing days or her scientific ability because I’m the worst person ever. And we have huge extended families.

B: Why did you decide to go to VCU?

I originally took a year off after high school, a year and a half off, and went to George Mason University and was there for a couple years and worked with a really awesome professor, who I went to Haiti and the Dominican Republic with. After those experiences I was having a really hard time being in school and I started hopping trains and working on a film about individuals around the country that choose to be homeless and travel around on freight trains and hitch hike. And I just followed and interviewed a bunch of them, made a film and spent a couple years, two and a half years, doing that. And I was 25 at that point so I moved back to Richmond because I could het the full pell grant and I could afford to go back to school. And vcu accepted me and the film department was really into the idea of me using super 8, which is one of my favorite mediums. So it just seemed like a good fit, and I had a lot of friends in Richmond. When you hop trains, a lot of trains go through Richmond so I had developed a lot of friendships and had a lot of friends from high school that ended up moving to Richmond as well. It seemed like the right fit.

B: How long have you been doing film stuff?

M: Not that long, since I was about 21, 20 maybe. 20 or 21. So six and a half years probably.

B: Were you ever into art in high school?

M: I don’t think so, I played music a lot. That is what I did. I played a lot of music and skateboarded a lot, and neither one of them did I do very well. But I worked all the time. I made art in the sense that I did a lot of fliers. Those were always really fun collages. And I did a lot of collages in my room of old magazines and photographs that I took or found or whatever. But, no, I never took art classes until I went to college. I didn’t think I was going to go for any art. I originally thought that I was going to go for English and sociology. 

B: have you had a favorite class at VCU?

M: At VCU? Yeah probably. I would say my favorite class, well Michael would want me to say… Um, no I think. It’s an interesting question. I would say I’ve been most challenged by my sociological theory class, which I really really enjoyed. But artistically challenged? I dunno, I think I’ve enjoyed working with professors outside of class a lot more than I’ve enjoyed any particular class, I can say that for sure. There have been a lot of professors that have been really generous with their time at talking about projects outside of the classroom setting. I think that’s helped more than any particular class.

B: That’s awesome

M: It’s been really nice, just bother them like crazy

B: So when did you decide that you were going to start doing, I guess socially engaged films?

M: I think when, probably when I was in… I know when I first wanted to make a film was when I saw Jim Cohen’s Fugazi documentary, Instrument. And that was, I kinda felt like I wasn’t ever going to be a good enough musician, and I didn’t think that I could ever make a narrative film that I would really like, so I watched that movie and it was just so incredible. He spent 10 years with an incredible group of people. And it’s just this amazing collage of all these different mediums and all these moments. And it’s just such an interesting – I’d never seen a film done like that, and if you haven’t seen it, its really beautiful. But it’s just like hundreds upon hundreds of different moments and its just really cool. So that really inspired me. And actually going to George Mason I was working with a couple professors who showed me some work that immediately that pushed me down that path. But I never wanted to do a Michael Moore type film where I’m in it or anything like that. It’s always been much like, every film I’ve ever made has been, I’ve been pretty removed so I think there are some similarities from when I was 21 until now but hopefully the work is getting better.

B: Do you have a favorite artist or filmmaker?

M: It changes all the time. I’d say that’s impossible. I really like… I’d say my favorite writer right now that’s talking about art is Claire Bishop. I think that she is really challenging to a lot of the things that I thought I understood. My favorite filmmaker right now… that’s hard – I have no idea. I actually don’t ever watch movies – I’ve watched, probably in the past year, like 3 movies maybe. Yeah, I dunno, I never have time to watch movies. I’m really interested in social practice art right now, which is just like community based art that kind of doesn’t have as much authorship – and that seems to be where my brain keeps drifting. But I really like Jim Goldberg, he’s one of my favorites for sure.

An Interview with Breonca Trofort

INTERVIEW WITH BREONCA TROFORT
What is your full name?:
Breonca Alyssa Trofort...don't tell no one my middle name...

Oh this is going to end up on the transcript!:
I know...(laughs)

Tell me about your home town:
I’m originally from Miami Florida.  It’s very different compared to Richmond, Virginia.  It’s not as slow passed.  It’s hottie populated and very diverse, like the VCU community.  We have a lot of Hispanics, Carribeans...The weather is beautiful!  It doesn’t get cold, so thats what I like, its always nice and hot!  Sometimes humid when it rains, but other than thats its always beautiful.  We have the beach which is 45 minutes to an hour away, which everyone thinks I live on, but I actually don't live on the beach.  It’s actually a nice place to go and relax.

So what was your family at home like?:
My family is very very close at home.  I have a twin sister who also goes to VCU with me.  Most of my Dad’s family lives in Miami, he’s one of seven children.  My mom is one of eleven, all of her family is in the Bahamas where she is originally from.

Have you ever been to the Bahamas?:
Yes I go every year with family for Christmas.

What is that like?:
It’s amazing! It’s really relaxing!  It’s a beautiful island and its just great to be around other cultures, so it’s beautiful.

How did you end up in Virginia?:
I was going to go to an all art school in DC which I had a scholarship to, but I figured after doing a lot of research I found out that VCU is the number one public university for school of the arts, and I wanted to get a real college experience, and I felt that I could get that as well as a great art education here.  So I came to VCU.

Had you ever been to Virginia before coming to VCU?:
No, the farthest north I’d been was Georgia.  So when I came up here it was a big surprise because I saw brick buildings for the first time, cuz we don't have that in Miami, so I was like “Oh my gosh, brick buildings!”  I fell in love with the brick buildings. (laughs)

What is the biggest difference between Virginia and Florida?:
The weather, definitely!  My first time seeing snow was my freshman year here, and I thought it was beautiful until I went outside...  I was very upset and I wanted to see the heat again! (laughs)

How did you become interested in photography?:
Growing up I always did drawing, painting, and my cousin would make videos of me and my sister, like little movies, and then I asked him how to use a camera.  Ever since then I have video cameras and random cameras.  I was in a magnet art program in middle school for painting and drawing and in high school for painting and drawing but i branched off into photography, and have just been continuing in it ever since.

What were your photographs like in high school?:
I took a lot of pictures of children.  A lot of sad children, but they weren’t really sad I just portrayed them that way.  A lot of different... Different places, different locations, like the Bahamas and abandoned buildings.  Different things like that.

How has your work changed?:
Um, over time my work has become some what more commercial.  I shoot very, very often in the studio now, I never used to do that.  I’ve just been exploring advertising photography and commercial photography, but now I’m challenging myself to create more conceptual work that had more deeper meaning behind beautiful images. (laughs)

What do you hope to do after school?:
I want to be a photographer after school.  I don’t know... Hopefully I will be an advertising photographer and see my pictures on billboards some day.

What community are you interviewing for this class?:
I’m interviewing families that have suffered with missing children or lost loved ones.

How did you pick that topic?:
Um...Ooh... I picked that topic because of an experience my family and friends are facing back home in Miami where my god-sister is missing.

How long has she been missing for?:
A year now.

Is she back in Miami?:
No she’s in...she was in South Carolina last time they saw her, so...

How is your family dealing with that?:
Um... It’s more of my parents are trying not to include me and my sister in the conversations about it because we’re very sensitive, so...  They keep us updated but they try not to go in depth about the different things they are finding or haven't found.  So its usually just what we research and find out from her sisters and cousins and everything

So you do research on your own about your cousin?:
Yes.

What is that like?:
It’s depressing, it’s very depressing.  It really has a damper on my mood somedays so I try...not to talk about it or I try not to read up about it because it gets me upset or depressed an I don’t want to go to class...different things like that.

What kinds of things have you found for your project?:
I found an organization where a families' daughter was missing and they found her murdered.  Her family decided to open up an organization that is a support system for different families that are facing similar circumstances.

Have you spoken to any of those families?:
Yes, I’ve gotten in contact with them.  Via telephone and via email I told them my story.  So I’m meeting with them on the 13th for their walk that they do every year, which is an annual walk for families that are suffering through the same thing to raise awareness about the issue.

So is this class what you expected when you started taking it?:
No, it isn’t at all! (laughs) I don’t even know what I expected..I actually thought we were going to be walking around taking pictures of random people and trying to make it something,  don’t know... It’s not what I expected but it’s better than what I expected actually.

How is it better?:
I feel like we are able to challenge ourselves and we’re able to do individual projects that based on the community that we choose; That we’re able to learn and grow more as artists rather than to being told “you have to focus on this community and portray it this way.”  I think it allows us to create our own voice.

Do you feel like it is helping you to deepen your conceptual art?:
Definitely, it really really is.  It’s helping me to learn how to create visual images that depict a story, which I haven’t really done quite often.

What do you do outside of school?:
Photography! (laughs)  I really do photography like 24/7.  I’m also part of a poetry team at VCU.  It’s a slam poetry team.  We actually went to a national competition last year; We’re tenth out of 72 universities in the united states.  So I so poetry very often aside from photography or drawing.

Is that Slam Nahuatl?:
Yes.

What is that like?:
It’s amazing!  It’s an amazing group of artists!  Surprisingly we have weekly..biweekly events and we’ve had a great turn out, a great audience, and a lot of freshmen that are interested.  It’s really nice seeing young people that are interested in poetry, interested in writing, and wanting to voice their stories.  It’s just a great experience, a great way for me to express my feelings with out using photography. It’s just a great way to get to know somebody on a deeper level.

Have you ever had your art be displayed before?:
My art? Yes.  My art is actually currently in an exhibition in Linden Row.  It was for “The New Emerging Faces Of Richmond”.

What kind of things did you have on display?:
It was my athlete portraits that I’ve done.  More commercial images.

[Jessica] Why are you guys sitting out here?

Cuz we’re doing our interview?

[Jessica] What?

Our interview for the class. (laughs)  Is that gonna be in the transcript?

(laughs) Maybe, we’ll decide!  I’ll figure that out...  How long is your exhibit going to be up?:

Until December, so the entire semester

Is that the first time your work has been on display?:
Um... I think it’s my first big time in Richmond.  The first time it was displayed was in Miami at, um... I forgot what exhibit it was, it was in high school.  Can’t remember the exhibit.  It was a picture of my cousin.

-my apologies for not having the video show up on the blog.  It shows up when I look at it and I'm not sure how to fix it.

Oral History of Mike Weinheimer

Interviewer: Jessica Overcash

Interviewee: Mike Weinheimer

Interview Setting: Interview conducted in Pollak building

Affiliation with interviewee: Peer in Portrait as a Community class

(Start of Interview)

Jess: So Mike how are you doing today?

Mike: I’m doin good how about you?

Jess: Pretty good, you know it’s a rainy day so I’m feeling pretty lazy. Um, could you give me some background information about yourself?

Mike: Sure what would you like to know?

Jess: Where were you born, how old are you, um, where did you go to school.

Mike: Okay, I was born at Washington regional hospital, and I lived pretty much most of my life in Great Falls Virginia, which is just half an hour from the DC area, and um, I went to school, I guess I’ll go through my series, I went to Great Falls elementary School, and then from there I went to middle school at uh Cooper, and then I went to high school at Langley.

Jess: I know some Langley kids

Mike: half, or, not half an hour, twenty minutes or even shorter from the CIA, so we were pretty close to that.

Jess: That’s pretty cool

Mike: Yea

Jess: Were you involved in any extracurricular activities in high school?

Mike: Yes, I was involved, probably not as much as most other students were, but I did do track and cross country for three, I wanna say probably three years, I wanna say. I didn’t do it senior year because um, not that it’s a bad thing but expectations,

Jess: Right,

Mike: for us at that level were kinda like way too much.

Jess: Right, I can totally relate, I was the same way.

Mike: And I would rather focused on senior year, doing that so.

Jess: Yea, well that’s great taking a break

Mike: Yea.

Jess: What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?

Mike: Well, there really wasn’t a name for it, we were pretty much just in the city of Great Falls.

Jess: Okay.

Mike: Which is what we call it, but to be specific I grew up on Maria Avenue.

Jess: That’s a nice name.

Mike: Yea, it is, nice Italian woman’s name. And uh that was off the main road Riverbend, where most people used to travel where they need to based on where we lived.

Jess: Okay.

Mike: And it wasn’t really, kind of like house to house next to each other, like cul-de-sac, it was more forest, um, suburban living. And uh we did have neighbors but that was kinda hard, because of either distance or relation, so for the most part it was just kinda ourselves in the house, and um if we wanted to do anything communicate or meet up it would always be somewhere else, like a driving distance away.

Jess: Okay.

Mike: And there were kids on my street, but not really involved, in terms of socially.

Jess: Where they older or younger?

Mike: Um, each, It really depended on the family, like it ranged. Most of them were pretty much older kids out of the house doing their own thing, either at school, college, or career.

Jess: Okay, so young adults.

Mike: Yea. And the younger kids woulda been way too young for me to even hang out with so.

Jess: Gotcha, did you have any pets?

Mike: Pets, that’s a good question. We did have pets when I was younger probably elementary school to when I was a baby, but at a certain point my parents kinda got fed up with it.

Jess: What kind of pets did you have that caused so many problems?

Mike: no, no, no, It wasn’t like the number of pets or what we had it was just my parents has dealt with kids, as well as pets with the kids for so many years that they needed one less thing and I guess they kind of, kind of um not lost but they didn’t really have the need for pets anymore.

Jess: Okay.

Mike: So my last one was, she was called whiffer, and she was a snouser terrier.

Jess: Aww,

Mike: So she was a cute little uh curly, curly haired dog.

Jess: Sounds cute.

Mike: And at times I would play with her, and I actually do recall one moment where I did act like a dog to get along with her so.

Jess: That’s really funny, well you have always been very theatrical.

Mike: what’s that?

Jess: You’ve always been very theatrical. Um, in high school where there any interactions that still stick out in your mind? Any favorite moments or events?

Mike: Oh gosh, such a wide span in terms of those many years being there, but I do remember one moment or thing I did my senior year with my friends. Or was it junior year? It was one of those years though.

Jess: One of those crazy years.

Mike: Probably more senior year, because it would have happened then but, um we were able to drive and park our cars on the school grounds as a privilege, and um, after school one day close to the Christmas holidays, probably the last day before Christmas holidays, um, I decorated my car up with fake Christmas wreath kinda of yarn,

Jess: Oh some of those wrap around the, wrap around the banister of the stair case things?

Mike: Yea, those things.

Jess: Oh okay.

Mike: So I had that with Christmas lights on and what I did was I fished it through my sun roof of the car and plugged it in through the cigarette lighter.

Jess: That’s crazy.

Mike: So I had that on, and I had my windows um decorated with those window paints and what not, wishing everyone a happy holidays and what not.

Jess: That’s cute.

Mike: And then, after school, to my point that I was getting to, my uh friend dressed up like Santa Clause full costume outfit, and bag of candy and candy canes. And after school since traffic was a pain in the butt to get out sometimes, and students were all about hanging out, talking, conversating, uh conversations, what not, uh we had the idea of he would be outside the sun roof at the top saying “Ho ho ho merry Christmas “or “happy holidays” and throw out the extra candy that he had left.

Jess: That’s awesome.

Mike: So that was a memorable moment that stood out.

Jess: It’s a good one.

Mike: Yea.

Jess: And um you don’t have to get too specific if you don’t want to but what other experiences do you think have shaped who you are today? Like I know sometimes kids get into a lot of trouble and they might regret it but then you have to owe who you are today to everything you’ve gone through. 

Mike: Well what I can say is that the guy that I was back in high school is not the same guy that I am today. Back then I was more, probably typical in high school too, but I was more self conscious, and very aware of what I did what actions, or how I acted in terms of socially amongst other people, tryna keep a balance between my friends and um the teachers faculty and staff. And I would say for me it was kinda rough, well not rough, but kinda difficult because there was that kind of set expectation for me, cause my dad was an ex- high school principal, who was well known and did really well in his field, so he knew a lot of people in the county as well as people at my own school and what not. So a lot of people knew about me and my dad and you know about him so you know it was kind of like, not high expectation but like they’re looking at me as someone who could be.

Jess: Right, so you were an easy target?

Mike: Yea you could day easy target, but, I wasn’t really a target I was more of a person to be looked up to I guess in terms of my dad.

Jess: Oh Okay.

Mike: Compared to the other students they had to deal with.

Jess: So since we kinda only got up to high school what kind of advice would you give you know kids today pre college, or kids in their generation should know about life until this point?

Mike: Well, I guess one thing that I could say for that is don’t be afraid to be who you are or what you wanna do, Don’t worry or get yourself down in terms of what other people would think or do. Not to sound like one of those hallmark cheesy kinda card quotes but just kinda be yourself.

Jess: Absolutely.

Mike: Don’t hold back and don’t let any social or peer um criticism, comments, or worries or um thing of concern bug you or um get in the way of how you are.

Jess: That’s great, that’s a very good piece of advice. Its not something I would say I haven’t heard before but kids have to learn the hard way, you know form day one its be who you are and be true to yourself and still its hard.

Mike: Well it takes a lot to learn about yourself.

Jess: Absolutely.

Mike: I could say its more, more than what you think time wise to get there, especially for some individuals.

Jess: Well thanks for talking with me today Mike.

Mike: Your welcome Jess.

Jess: We’ve reached our limit but you know have a great day and I’ll talk to you later.

Mike: Okay.