They weren’t for you

David Turner

Interview by L. Valena

Can you first describe to me what you responded to?

It was quite a colorful and busy piece- it looked like crayon or maybe colored pencil. It was full of a lot of different shapes, a lot of different colors- there was a lot going on.

And what was your first reaction?

I was excited, because it was so far afield from what my work usually is- not necessarily super busy. So that was going to be a challenge to figure out where I was going to go.

So where did you go?

After spending some time looking at it, the thing that I kind of picked up from it was seeing faces everywhere I looked. Everywhere I looked in it I would see faces, and regardless of how I turned the work or how I looked at it. These eyes and mouths just kept popping out.

What happened next?

I just kind of sat on that for awhile- I was really kind of unsure about what I should do, what the final piece should look like, what I wanted it to look like. So after about a week, I figured it was time to hop in front of a camera. I started trying a few different things. I was thinking about, at one point, of like how drawing and analog photography are remnants of arcane technology. We've got such powerful computers now, that we almost don't need them in a technical sense. So I was looking at an old computer of mine that had just died, and I working with trying to photograph some kind of interesting landscape of the interior of that computer. I made a few pictures, and then didn't really feel anything from them.

Wait, you were photographing the interior of the computer?

Yeah, I opened the case, and was just looking at the wires and circuitry as kind of this outdated technology. The computer was already several years old- almost a decade old now, and it recently died on me. So I was having some issues with the computer.

So you said you didn't really feel anything from those pictures?

Yeah. I didn't really feel too much connection with those. That's a fairly vague statement, and it's one of those things that's a feeling that you get from looking at something, not necessarily that it was a poor picture or anything like that.

So did you switch gears at that point?

I did. That's when I really got focused on maybe that I needed to think about the eyes, mouth and face connection. We live outside of the city, so I'm really the only subject I have- either my girlfriend or myself, and she was at work. So, I just started playing around with ideas. And she's got this antique yo-yo quilt, they call them, which you can see in the background of the pictures.

It's gorgeous.

When I first saw the way they had turned out on the negatives, I was pretty excited, because it reminded me a lot of busyness of the images I was responding to.

Can you tell me more about this yo-yo quilt? What is that?

It's basically a huge piece of fabric, and up close they almost look like little flowers, but they've all been hand made and then sewn onto this quilt.

It's gorgeous. I love how busy it is- it's a cool echo.

We also keep a few plants around, and I had just had a showing of some of my work here locally, and my partner got me some flowers. So that's where the flowers in the picture came from. And then the other plant in there- I believe it's called Mother In Law's Tongue. It's just another nice houseplant that we have sitting around. I felt like they were important- seeing those repeated faces in the imagery- and there are some other repeated forms, I really wanted something to kind of tie all three of the images. So those flowers and that plant are in all three of those images.

One thing I found interesting about the piece you responded to was these forms that felt almost like archetypal symbols of something, but it's not clear of what. Looking at your work, I'm feeling the same way. There is some symbolism here that is kind of mysterious. Can you speak to that a little bit?

For me, is was partly just finding interesting things, and also I really love plants in pictures. A lot of the work I've done recently has been a lot of floral still lives. I love the beauty and simplicity- and sometimes complexity- that flowers can bring to an image.

I've been living with my partner now for a few years. When I first met her, she was a flower farmer. She was growing flowers herself and then selling them at a local market. And that's really how I got into photographing flowers and being interested in flowers. Having an abundance of interesting shapes and colors to look at and to photograph. And then watching that yearly cycle of seeing all this beauty come into bloom and then just kind of fade away. Spending a lot of time wondering- is the beauty in the thing inherent in the thing? Is it in the seed? Or is it only when it blooms- is that when the thing is beautiful? Is beauty an apex? Or is it just kind of a path that the thing walks?

Oh! What a beautiful idea! And that's so interesting because we kind of perceive people that way too, right? Beautiful women are told not to rely on their beauty because it will 'fade away'.

Absolutely.

What else? Tell me more about this work.

Self portraiture has also been something that I've really enjoyed doing. I'm a fairly private person, and I don't know if it's an extreme hubris or whatever, but I've always found myself in front of the camera. And it's not always been comfortable, but I've always felt that it's kind of necessary. There's something about being the subject of your own gaze, kind of like writing about your thoughts, taking images of yourself while your taking images- there's a lot of meta layers to get through there, and a lot of psychological things to unpack.

I totally agree with you. I've made a ton of self portraits, and I think it took awhile for me to even understand why I was so drawn to it. I think so much of it is about trying to get a fix on what I even look like. How we perceive ourselves, and how others perceive us, is so different. Trying to fix in our own brains how we even perceive ourselves is such a difficult journey.

It really is. It's interesting, because you look at yourself in the mirror, but for me, it's really quite a different experience to see a printed image of yourself. The static image of something that's now past- a transitory moment in time. And you've got it there and it's locked in. At least when you're the one capturing the image and the subject you have this kind of special place when you can not only think about what your mind was going through as you were making it, but as you were going involved in making it in both ways. It's kind of like being the lead actor in a play that you're writing as you go along.

That thought about performance and things of that nature is relatively new, and kind of came about as I was working on this. I was trying to figure out how to organize myself in this space to really maximize what it is I'm trying to do in responding to this image. I knew that because there were so many disparate elements of that original picture, that they all kind of added up to the whole. I need to have many elements in each of these pictures to kind of copy that. I was thinking of myself as the actor in this performance that was being recorded.

This whole experience of responding to the artwork like that is fairly new- I don't know that we ever did too much like that when I was in school. But I think it's just a beautiful exercise for the creative muscle. If your a photographer, responding to a photograph is one thing, but responding to a piece of music or a drawing- a very abstract drawing, whatever it may be that's outside your normal comfort zone, is an incredibly effective way of strengthening that muscle. Figuring out how to organize your thoughts in such a way that you know kind of the path you want to take, you know where you want to go. And you know how to get there. You don't necessarily know what it's going to look like in the end, but you have an idea... at least I know what I want to feel when I look at those images.

That's a really great way of saying that- I think of it as kind of getting vibe. It it's cool that you tried one thing, and changed directions. That definitely shows that you had something in your mind that wasn't fixed on a certain image, but on something deeper. Do you any advice for someone else who is going to do this project?

Just do it. Don't limit yourself if you think the task will be too difficult. It's just about strengthening your creative muscles. It's like going for a walk or jogging or whatever. It's only meant to improve your skills and hone your creative and artistic thinking. So just do it.

Call Number: Y22VA | Y28VA.tuThe

David lives on a small acreage in Illinois with his partner and their menagerie of animals. He finds pleasure in simple things like cuddly kittens, a well cooked egg or a fine cup of coffee and good conversation. When struck by inspiration he enjoys using his 8x10 large format camera to make paper negatives in his makeshift bathroom darkroom. His work can be found on Instagram @tungstensun or his website david-turner.com. Headshot credit: @porkpiephotography