How I arrived here...
an origin spiel.
hi you.
My name is Bianca. I was born in New Jersey and grew up mostly in Florida. My art making began abruptly after my first ever panic attack at around 12 years old when I first discovered death.
Nothing bad had even happened, never experienced loss- just all of a sudden got my brain caught in a loop of nothingness as I tried to fall asleep one night.
I just stared at the blackness of the ceiling and kept thinking- “nothing. nothingnothingnothingnothing.”
My favorite music, my favorite color, my parents, my baby sister, my dog- eventually nothing would matter. I couldn’t compute it but I also couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t unfeel it.
I started making what I now see as creepy little shrines (haha). I would buy disposable cameras and take pictures of everyone and everything i loved and would buy wooden boxes/ objects from michaels craft store and collage paste the pictures all over. I needed to know there was something physical to exist to show what I cared about for whoever was left if I couldn’t.
I had a really hard time expressing the intensity of what I felt-always…
I remember just hanging out with my mom or dad and feeling this lump in my throat rise wanting to tell them “i love you” but I just couldn’t get it out- almost as if saying it would somehow come out instead as “im so afraid of you or i dying.”
So I would make stuff instead and hope they read an, “oh she must really love me and not want me to die because she made this picture box” between the lines. (I’m cringing and giggling at this as I type.)
Then in highschool I was in a photography class. It was my favorite class but it never occurred to be as a serious possibility to pursue. I was in all advanced placement classes at the top of my class and had scholarship options to state schools for god knows what- i had no idea and felt cursed by my ability to do well in math. I then came across Jim Goldbergs work- specifically Rich & Poor in class one day and my brain absolutely fucking broke in the most glorious way.
JIM GOLDBERG: RICH & POOR, learn more about this work here.
It was one of those before and after moments. never the same.
Instantly not an option to not do that.
Photography became something else.
It opened something in me that felt like freedom, peace, possibility, connection-
basically everything that mattered.
Took a hard left into a private art school and signed up for more debt than I could ever understand before I was even able to buy a beer and loved every minute of it. I immediately was drawn to multimedia practices.
I did an independent study on death and combined photographic, video, audio works into an installation show.
I followed that multimedia instinct and did my thesis on my family during my parent’s divorce utilizing photography, home videos, & film stills as a way to explore the past, look for answers, and make the meaning that would help me feel okay and say things I couldn’t say.
I had always continued personal work alongside my full-time jobs in the photo world but it quickly became the center stage life force when the birth of my second child, a layoff (whilst still bleeding from childbirth) & the death of my deeply beloved dog (a glimpse into the painful/life giving revelation here.) all happened within a couple weeks. Another Jim Goldberg moment of sorts.
I couldn’t unsee or unfeel what happened and what I decided it all meant.
Photography is a way to get to myself- sometimes the only way.
It’s processing. It’s an active meditation. It’s a visual representation of consciousness.
The work I do now is a mix of intimate portraiture/family work, and education/writing/creating spaces that open up the possibility of redefining what visual language can be for a person.
How it helps us live and bring our nostalgia to our now.
Whether I’m creating the images or not- I want to broaden the conversation of seeing.
What does it mean to see instead of look?
How is this available to everyone?
And what do we do with it?
And what are we saying without needing to say anything?
What life do you get to live by showing up for your vision?
I’m forever perplexed by how photographs are everything to me and yet they are not the point at all. It’s everything inside and around it.
The ability to see the self through seeing what you’re seeing within your photographs.
The nothingness that scared the shit out of me at 12 yrs old has become the focal point of my life. I’m obsessed with creating within nothingness and showing how the nothingness is everything.
Currently balancing making a living with this work means a lot of travel which is tough with 2 small kids. It’s crucial to me to keep this work sacred so I protect my energy for the work by working for pay in another skillset if another person’s vision is involved. I do this by freelance art direction for ecommerce brands a week at a time, once a month or so to bring in money. My client photography work (portraiture/family) is sporadic but I like it that way. Working with clients that are a deeply right fit has been a huge part of keeping the work sacred. Work & pay feels like feast and famine.
I feel like the work that is most important to me has me in a void. Like I’m floating in the horrifying blackness of my 12 yr old self’s room that night. I iterate and iterate and work and create alone in my basement and I never feel fully expressed. The craziest itch I cannot reach. I feel like I’m not effectively communicating what I need to get out of myself and it drives me mad.
The respite for the madness?
The pictures.
Each image feels like a moment where my mind goes blissfully blank and I just feel “this.”
Everything.
I am an artist, educator, & mother exploring consciousness, presence, & transcendence through photographic practice.
It is deeply important to me to explore the ways in which I can utilize photographic practice to broaden the conversation of how photographs can be less about forgetting/remembering and more about how they help us see more now while we are still living it.
What comes up for me, reading this: My life. Life in general. Death. Beauty. Magic. Thank you for sharing yourself with the world. It is both generous and helpful. P.S. photography as meditation is real.
what a story to read - something that came up for me is using art/space/blogs/writing/photos/videos to capture deep emotion and feeling and creating something for 1) YOU & also what happens when we share that thing? I feel nostalgic almost daily & am recognizing that this is just a part of me - this part needs nurturing and art and space to feel and breathe. I think about moments passing quickly often and capturing light ... being present in light and shadows around the campground I live in. I feel like I'm never doing enough, but maybe I need to throw that feeling away and let it go and feel good about what I am doing. I want to create a legacy like Jim Goldberg, but I think thats just making the art and letting go of the rest.