There's a Home With a Roof, Then There's One With You
Photograph by Joy Newell
Once upon a time, I couldn’t be attached to space. I was an only child who didn’t feel a sense of security or ownership in relation to the places I spent the most time in. Disproving the bias that us only children are unwilling to make space or simply won’t share with others (gimme gimme), I remember feeling the happiest when I was creative and would dissolve into “art time”, for hours on end, with a friend by my side. Typically I was alone. Like many children raised unconventionally, I would pack my belongings in a shapeless bag and shuffle from house to house each week. This displacing way of life made me think it wasn’t possible to have a space where I could unleash my messy creative practices, while feeling comfortable enough that I could fall asleep in a nest of my own journals and weird scraps at the snap of a finger. I also didn’t think I would ever find someone like David—my right hand, my moon and sun, the one. David makes me feel comfortable, uplifted, and believes that even our art practices can be in a relationship, too. We are two artists in love, living together during the coronavirus pandemic.
David and I are head honchos in survival. We haven’t lived together for long, maybe 6 months at this point, but we’ve been making art together for over a year now. Before Los Angeles’s Safe at Home order, David worked as a photographer, an assistant, and I was working full-time as a commercial actor and model. We approached the work just the same; we both knew how to contribute to larger works that weren’t built on our ideas alone. With kindness and a lot of patience, we could tune out any noise we didn’t agree with to make a job go by faster. There was always a balance between artistic fulfillment and commercialization in our lives, but that’s changed. Now we’re home every day, out of work and sanitizing any object that enters from the outside. This is a scary time, but being here at home is our contentment. For the gorgeous sake of sanity, we can now tune the world out when we must, go inward, and create something. Making pictures with each other is our bliss.
Have you ever discovered an image so profound that it’s like seeing yourself? Well, seeing photos of Patti Smith and Rob Mapplethorpe’s late-1960’s Brooklyn apartment was a self-realizing guide for me. The exact moment I discovered those images of them together, surrounded by their reflections and the art they made, I decided, “This is how I want to live my life!” My proclamation happened years ago while living alone in a college dorm the size of a broom closet. I saw a glimpse of something I had already felt: in equal parts a need for love, art-making, and space. This duo’s lifestyle filled me with an excited bewilderment that I would later uncover in my own relationship with David. I would find a person who was like a place to me, and together we would build a physical space around us that felt like one big play-room.
Our home is colorful and filled with objects that mean something to us, from micro-mini cheeseburgers and fries, to green depression glass and odd relics we’ve inherited. When I first moved in, we noticed that my personal objects were meant to be in a relationship with David’s—all strikingly similar in their form, purpose, and color. The work we create together marries these belongings to self-portraiture, still life photography, and the idea that discovery is ongoing. Sharing a dual romantic-creative life with someone means you also have to understand that your expectations for work may differ, and the way you define “productive” will differ too. I was once notorious for working to the point of exhaustion, being too hard on myself. David is much gentler, more patient, and is still teaching me how to ease into life as it comes.
I don’t have the answers for combatting the stress or sadness that comes with quarantining, but I think it starts with patience and surrounding yourself with anything that makes you happy. It can be a small thing, something that catches your eye and reminds you that you’re ok. Our objects and surroundings don’t define us, but they can be the only mirror we need sometimes. Caring for plants is another happy hobby which helps to mark the passage of time. They’re also a great excuse to play with dirt.
As mentioned, where we live is a home studio: it functions as an experimental space for making anything we want, but we also sleep here. We try not to define our space too much, but comfort is a priority. We will spend an entire day just pushing all of the furniture around until we’re satisfied. This ritual is simple, but what we’re really doing is making a metaphysical adjustment that will allow us to work together. We also know how to work separately, respect each other’s quiet time, and can go hours without talking. Learning present silence is a healthy skill and allows you and your partner to spend time away from each other (even if they are within eyesight). I’m a talker, and David is quiet, but together there can be understanding beyond words. Thinking the same idea from time to time, “I was just going to say that!”—always gets me.
David and I are growing stronger in our relationship with each other as with our art practice. In the early days of dating, David would invite me over (to our now home studio) to make pictures of me. I would follow his lead while making my own adjustments here and there. I wanted to respect that David had a vision that I was now a part of. Now I take pictures of him, with him, and we use verbiage like “Does this feel right for you?” and are careful and aware of representation and how our voices combined can be powerful. We’ve always worked as equals, and there’s also value in having multiple roles—I can be a prop stylist, a director, an editor, or a producer when making photos with David. Quarantine has made us confront different concepts and ways of reading images. We have more time for essays and books about art - it honestly feels like we’re in school again. I’ve been hearing from other artist couples who aren’t quarantining together but are learning to adapt and create from a distance. There are couples creating short scripts, videos, songs, and even collaborating on comics together while they’re miles apart.
I want to highlight that not being productive right now is just as groovy. We’re not always making work at home or thinking about accomplishments. We spend most of our time doing all the normal things to survive just like anybody else. Sometimes I will read about other artists working from home, only hearing about their new process, but I’m just hoping for realness in place of the self-congratulatory illusion of an artist’s identity. Do you vacuum or mop? Like nature? Cry? Wear pjs until noon? Scour vegetables? Call mom? Know someone who has the virus? What’s more, isolating during a time of isolation is feeling like your own circumstances aren’t normal. We see this on social media, we know life doesn’t look that way. This is a human time, one where all we have is each other, and maybe this is our chance to shed the identities we hide behind. The quest for individualism has stung us badly in the United States, and one of the best ways to heal from this is to seek a real connection (one that’s virtual or six feet away, for now) with a group or someone other than yourself.
When I first met David I felt a real jolt in my body like ZAP! A big light came on inside. The connection we share is a special one, and we want our home to mirror this light, this feeling. Our home brings us a lot of joy, as does experiencing the beauty of the everyday, reading out loud to each other, seeing our friends from afar, and learning about different people or places that we’d like to know someday. We value authenticity and compassion. We love deeply and want the best for each other. In this home I know a place where I can feel safe, that allows me to be myself, take up space and be in touch with an inner child who just wants to relish in the colorful odds and ends of the world. Life is fun, don’t forget.