| In
the Beginning
I started out acting in 1981. I went
to a summer theatre camp near my house in Michigan, just north of detroit
for two years and got involved in drama in high school. I I had teachers who either hated or
loved my work and I would often have battles about my content and decisions
as a photographer. When the photo department almost closed due to a lack
of funding, I left only to move back to Detroit and battle with the photography
instructor at Wayne State University.
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 The next project was called "Warriors of the Flesh," another serious of self portraits depicting my torso, nude with lipstick markings and double exposed with a stucko wall which created the texture of my skin. I consider that to be the beginning of Warrior Girl. My photography in hindsite had become my voice. It was a dark and frightened part of myself that I could not verbalize just yet. I stopped doing photography when I was married and it became difficult to get down to the darkroom. I began to paint as my only outlet, and played in bands with my husband as an experiment. We ended up having a number of bands inspired by Crash Worship ( a tribal drumming band), Dead Can Dance (a more melodic gothic band) and we created a performance project called Algiz, where we created ritual on stage and did scarification, and really explored the darker sides of ourselves. mm |
was
too shy, however and my feeble attempts at getting more serious about it
were not working. My father had bought a Minolta Maxxum camera, the first
automatic computerized camera. He let me borrow it and I found myself shooting
alot. I took my first photography class and I was sold on the idea. I look
back now, realizing that I chose to shoot because I wanted to be in front
of the camera and since no one else wanted to put me there, I did it myself.
I shot for 10 years, had shows and started to make a name for myself as
a photographer, but could not sell any work. Most of my work was self-portrait
installation influenced heavily by Cindy Sherman, Duane Michaels, and the
Starn Twins. I went to Ohio State and eventually majored in photography.