Soulskin; The Return to the Wild Self

Over the past year, I’ve been working on a project called Soulskin; the return to the wild self.

While battling post natal depression, after the birth of my first child in August 2021, I lost my energy to create.

In this blog post, I’ll briefly fill you in on when and how this idea was born, a little bit of context around how and why I chose to exhibit work solely from this project and a new approach to photographic intention.

Post partum dark days

I was in a dark place, and the highest priority on my agenda was recovery and nurturing my little girl (trying to anyway). I had no space to hold for visions. No capacity for executing visions. No creative fire burning within like I had before.

There was no time for surfing, my body ached, I was weak. I struggled to reach those in between moments that had once been my solace.

I got help. I finally found a little spark of creativity soon after starting therapy, re-building myself into a mother and I started to get the camera out again.

Set in motion

At the same time, I had started to pen project proposals for a couple of applications that Fujifilm had coming up. At the time I was not an ambassador, but someone from the team reached out to me and encouraged me to apply, so I thought “what have I got to lose?”

The application wasn’t successful, but I felt a sense of relief because I wasn’t ready. What was successful though, is that I planted a seed within myself. The idea of a project where I could set some boundaries around intention to create photographic art.

Previously, my intention to shoot was based on surf, water, wind, and other weather conditions. Now, I could not follow the call of nature. I was on someone else’s schedule (I still am) - my little baby girl Lola.

An idea is born of a dream

I carried on fleshing out the initial project proposal over the next couple of months as I moved through my own journey of recovery. I knew I wanted to do something to do with motherhood, I simply couldn’t see myself as the free-spirited maiden surfer girl any more.

My life changed forever and the only desire I had was to recover from post natal depression and work through a cathartic process of communicating my feelings through photographic image. All while spending time in nature and connecting with other mothers and women.

I was having vivid dreams at the time - some of left me with really strange feelings for the days following (this is part of PND as well). So I went to see a dreamworker. I told her how I was having recurring dreams about seals. I distinctly remember two of those dreams, and being scared of the seals. It transpired that the seals had come into my dreams to gift me the message that I needed to be scared. That kind of scared feeling when you are in the presence of nature and you can feel her unpredictable force. I guess that’s something I used to get from surfing; when you don’t know what the next set might bring you!

I was void of those experiences in nature at the time, and over this time I have learned that is such an important part of my recovery.

My dreamworker asked me if I’d ever heard of a book called Women Who Run With The Wolves.

I had not.

But within one week I had ordered it online and it was coming my way. There was a specific story she wanted me to read called Sealskin, Soulskin.

As I started reading this story and subsequently the whole book, I was overwhelmed with how much every other paragraph resonated with me. It turned out the book would offer me endless inspiration to fuel the making of this project, with some elements forming visions for photographic artworks. From initial shots that I was desperate to get out of my system, to the shots I have ended up compiling, resulting in a series of images that explore the birth of a mother.

At the beginning of this process, I had no idea how the end result would look. What images would make it in there and which ones would not (but that’s a conversation about the creative process for another time…)

Intention to photograph

So that was it. I had the missing part of the puzzle and it was time to get out into the field, to hold myself accountable and to start creating! I decided that I wanted subjects in my images, but it needed to be authentic. As a mother, my body had been through the most extraordinary transformation I’d ever experienced. I had to honour that. So I chose to photograph only mothers, because that’s what I identified with and I knew would help me create an authentic body of work.

I also shifted the boundaries in which I would work, so as I was not just working at sunrise and sunset. This was not realistically sustainable for me as it used to be. So I chose to give myself new challenges - to shoot in rains and storms, to shoot in bright sunlight, to completely go with the flow of the universe. I have actually never felt more connected to my work than over the past year, and I put that down to following Lola’s lead and listening to my gut as to when it feels right to create or not.

Organising the photo shoots and heading out to collect props has given me purpose. It has given me an opportunity to spend time in nature, to talk with a fellow Mama, to give both of us time to have fun away from our babies and discover a little bit about ourselves. This was something entirely unexpected, and turns out the actual experience of going out on these photography missions was soul balm in itself - a crucial part of my recovery from post natal depression.

The vision

The initial vision was simple: I knew I wanted to incorporate flowers from my garden - gardening was a new passion I discovered during this time and I had visions of photographing flowers in water - and I knew I wanted to photograph mothers but in an abstract sense. I knew I wanted it to be about a return to nature. Something I wrote in my journal at the time has stuck with me throughout the project:

“The moon, the ocean, the earth - we are all inherently interconnected.”

Why I chose to exhibit my work

Initially I thought it would be great to end this project in an exhibition. Back in the days of my textile design degree, we worked for an entire year on one project. It gave us the chance to spend the first half of the year in the research phase, and the second half of the year in an execution phase.

When an artist spends a prolonged period of time working across one project, he/she/they experiences the ability to create a deeper level of storytelling while learning new techniques and practicing their craft.

For me, this project was all about an evolving story rather than an evolving technique while forming the backbone of my recovery from post natal depression. I wanted to employ a range of techniques I already use as well as learning new ones, and experimenting with a range of lenses to create a diverse portfolio to hang at the final exhibition.

I wanted to hold myself accountable. And an exhibition seemed like a familiar way for me to do this. I thought about looking for a space to exhibit and it felt overwhelming, so I approached a space I know, where I have exhibited before (as part of a wider collective of wahine artists and photographers for Betty Zine) - Allpress Studio. Long story short, they said yes, so I knew it was just meant to be. I figured if they said no, then it wasn’t meant to be. But they said yes. And that scared me. So I knew it was right…

February 2023, here we are, exhibition installed! I’ll tell you all about that in another blog post!

Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below!

L x