Pretty is as Pretty Does
- Anne Pollard James
- Oct 19
- 2 min read
A few months ago, I was contacted out of the blue by a photographer of St. Louis. He’s got a project called ‘cameras across the country’ and he goes to every state and photographs artist in their studio. A Couple days before we were scheduled for the shoot we chatted over the phone about what the look of the day would be. I assumed I was one of a couple of subjects. I asked who else who was shooting in Tulsa and he said no one. He was flying into town just to shoot me.I suddenly got a little nervous. Like what was I goong to wear? What was I gonna do with my hair? I started worrying about what I was gonna look like.
This go around I was the artist for Oklahoma. We set up a time, and he flew to Tulsa to shoot me and my studio. My work is all about reclamation. I think about the why I paint what I paint and it’s always because I’m trying to solve this disconnect between me and what we have as women have been trained to consider. And that is the gaze of others. my work recognizes that and is always asking the subject to go inward to consider what it is about themselves that brings them delight. It mever matters what anyone else thinks.
And so when he came to my studio, I suddenly became aware of what I looked like to others. I feel like I move through my life lately in a feeling of contentedness in myself. And it struck me how quickly I wondered “do I look pretty, is he gonna make me look pretty? Am I gonna be appealing to others? And the sad knowing of this made me say out loud to him that that’s what I was considering. And it forced me to reconcile that every day is a new day in terms of reclamation of self. Every day is a new day when you decide to reflect in word and not concern yourself with the gaze of others. And that every day it’s OK if you forget.
