Feather

“Dust my feathers.
I’m shaking on the floor, but I want to fly.
Hoping that it will get better, yeah.
The television teases paradise.

Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather.

Words taste bitter;
Frozen every time I see a pair of eyes.
Momma, can I sleep forever?
Wake me when the birds light up the sky.

Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather,
Be free.

Now I’m flying and everything feels so free.
Take me higher, take me.
Now I’m flying and with these broken wings
Take me higher, be free.

Dust my feathers.
I’m praying on my knees ‘cause I want to fly.
Daddy, can you change the weather, yeah?
Show me when the raindrops turn to life.

Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather.
Get up, get up, get up, feather,
Be free.

Now I’m flying and everything feels so free.
Take me higher, take me.
Now I’m flying and with these broken wings
Take me higher, be free.”

[ Feather – Meg Myers ]

I really don’t like discussing it because I don’t want to sound like I’m fishing for pity or attention, but I have depression and anxiety problems. Not as in a hyperbole for feeling blue or worried, but in a serious, therapy-needing way. Not only am I finding it difficult to have social interactions or even doing everyday activities like grocery shopping, cooking or studying, but last year I reached the point when it affected my artistic production as well, which had always been my catharsis and the place I found my strength in. One single, silly incident with a pretentious ass totally threw me off track and froze me on my feet, and no amount of positive feedback I was receiving on actually paid works from commissioners seemed to wipe away the feeling I was a total failure and people were only being condescending with me. It sucks, trust me. Now, I know this is a long, difficult path and it will take much more than a few therapy sessions and a haircut to recover fully, but I’m trying to get myself together and stay as positive as I can. At least, I’m getting back one of the things that bring me most joy and at which I’m decent, namely photography. You have no idea how better I feel after I’ve shot, or while I’m editing the photos, and after I closed the Mesmerism drama for good (the model wrote me to publish one of the photos and I politely told her I have no use for her and she could just fuck off) I’ve started to feel the inspiration flowing back.

This is the context in which I’ve been listening to Meg Myers’ beautiful song, Feather. It’s a sad, sad song, but there’s something hopeful about it which resonates with me. I don’t know if Meg intended for it to be about battling depression, but I see a lot of myself in it. Such lines as “I’m shaking on the floor but I want to fly”, “Hoping that it will get better”, “I’m frozen every time I see a pair of eyes” or “Momma, can I sleep forever?” perfectly describe how I feel many, many times. I’ve grown so attached to this song than there it was, the first image of the series, perfectly pictured in my mind. The more I listened to it, the more every verse spoke to me and gave me images, until I opened the notepad on my computer and wrote down every idea I had. This is how the concept for this series came to be.

As you can probably see, I broke down the song verse by verse and depicted each one with a photo or a composition. Both on deviantART and Facebook I wrote which part applies to each image making a slow progression from lying helpless on the ground to getting up, to letting go of grief and numbness (the black veil) and dancing in the wind. To emphasise the progressive change, I timed each photo to have a slightly different light in it, so we go from mostly blue hues to having some golden light, to a predominance of warmer tones, as if the sun were slowly rising and brightening the scene. The red shirt provides a visual thread that unites the images, as does the white frame, which allowed me to assemble some images as in a magazine.

The necklace I wear was handcrafted a few years ago by my friend Karina Novak especially for me. She often asked me why I never wore it in my photos and I told her I was saving it for something special. Well, that something special has finally come, and given the title and the metaphor in the song it fit perfectly with these photos.

Here is a little side note: before I told the Minus Habens off, she accused me of wasting her precious work as the “art director” of our shooting. Well, darling, let me explain a couple of thing about art direction: it does not mean you just tell me “I want to copy a certain photo” and leave it up to me, it means what I did here. While I shot most of the landscapes and non-portrait details, my portraits were taken by my mother, DamaInNero, under my close direction. I had a very precise idea about what I wanted the photos to look like so not only did I choose the location and the styling, but I told my mom from which angle to shoot, how close to get, on which details to focus, where to stand so the light grazed the scene the way I wanted, what I did and did not want in the background, beside having a definite idea of which poses I needed. She only adjusted the details that were out of my control (such as suggesting me to change the pose a bit so it would look better, wouldn’t make nasty shadows or cover elements in the background) but I didn’t leave it up to her to develop a vague input I gave her. It was a very satisfying experience for both of us and the final result was exactly what I had pictured in my head.

As for me, after spending some awful months at the first and second photos, I think I am currently at photo III with my life. I don’t quite have the strength I need to fly yet, but at least I’m trying to react. I hope I haven’t saddened you (I talked about all of this just to let you understand how personal and significative these images are to me) and I really want to thank each and every one of you, who support my work and give me motivation to keep up the one thing that makes me feel stronger and good with myself. Thank you all, truly.