Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Photography and Photo Art
When I was child, I remember having a great deal of freedom. I don’t mean that just in the sense of being able to spend a lot of time reading or wandering through the woods across the road from our house. I also mean it in the sense that being a girl was only one minor aspect of my existence and experience rather than being the thing that defined me as an individual.
When I was talking with my sister about this self-portrait series and what I hoped to accomplish with it, she jokingly suggested that I pose nude. Um, no. Nude was out of the question but it got me thinking. One of my primary goals with this project is to explore aspects of myself that I have not completely revealed in the past or that make me feel uncomfortable. So I thought maybe I should push myself a bit and pose in a way that, for me, is more scantily clad because I’ve always had a poor body image. I knew I’d have to psych myself up for it.
In my post yesterday, I mentioned that I’ve been experiencing a bit of a writer’s block lately. So this morning I decided to start a new project as a way of unclogging the creative pathways. A week or so ago, I came up with the idea of doing a series of self-portraits with something written to go along with each one. The goal was (and is) to give tangible form to parts of myself that tend to remain at least partly veiled. My queer self, for example, is given free expression within the fictional and poetic realms but not so much outside of those. My masculine and feminine selves are often at least somewhat obscured by a layer of what is socially expected. And so on. By creating the self-portraits, I hope to push myself beyond those boundaries.
Much to think about for tomorrow’s Memorial Day holiday thanks to my friend, Rob Goldstein.
Before I started this blog, I spent some time creating an organizational outline and going through my computer files to select existing content that I wanted to include here. That was all pretty straightforward. But as I was getting organized, I was moved to go searching through my paper files for stuff that I wrote decades ago, mostly poetry and some short fiction. I finally found those things after rummaging through several desk drawers and miscellaneous boxes. As I read through the pieces I had kept, including some commentary from former professors, I found something else I hadn’t expected. I found my young self.
This blog features a variety of written work and visual art. I enjoy writing fiction and poetry as well as nonfiction. I also love photography and creating art from my photos. Feel free to browse. I hope you enjoy your time here!
Karen Lee Kleis 