Perhaps a turtle, Displaced

Parker Shatkin

Interview by C. VanWinkle

Hey, Parker. Can you begin by telling me what it was that you responded to?

Yeah, what you sent me looked like maybe a colored pencil drawing of a turtle in a, I don’t know, an abyss maybe? Some sort of colorful rainbow thing.

How would you describe it?

I would say it was a very peaceful drawing. It was pastel colors, purples and oranges, and a little bit abstract. The background was definitely abstract, but the turtle in the center was clear.

Do you remember your first impression of it?

I got a peaceful vibe from it. And I was really curious about what that could have been a response to, where that could have come from. I think it was interesting that it was a focused central object and then abstract around it. Obviously, it wasn’t a fully from-life drawing. There had to have been some sort of thought behind it and I was curious about what that was. Not that you would necessarily know.

Yeah, you know that the thing you got was prompted by something, but you have no idea what that might have been or what their intention was. So what happened next?

I thought about how I could take that and remake it in the way that I’ve been working recently, which is mostly these weird, surreal self-portraits. I just started playing around. I had this green fabric in my room and I was like, Oh perfect! I threw it over myself and started playing around as a turtle. That was pretty fun. And then I went out and walked around and looked at different areas. “This would be a cool background!” You know, locations to weirdly displace myself. It was sort of just stream-of-consciousness.

Were you just going for the appearance or were you in character? How did you feel when you were being a turtle?

It was fun to do something more playful. A lot of the time, I way overthink the photos I’m taking or the work I’m doing. So it was really nice to just respond to something freeform. To let it happen and be playful with it, and not worry about writing about it after or thinking through all my steps.

I hadn’t looked up what your work looks like, so I didn’t know what to expect from you. It was a really fun surprise!

Well thank you. Obviously, I have no idea what the other people are doing or what the other pieces are. I was wondering how much strictly traditional stuff you’re getting and if my piece would throw you guys for a loop.

At this point, I think it’s hard to throw us for a loop. We have seen so many weird things come out of left field. I love it. You said that you wanted to do something related to what you’ve been doing lately anyway. How does this fit with the rest of your work?

Well, in the last maybe three years, I’ve been mostly working with a combination of photography, sculpture, and textiles. I’ll put them together in a staged photograph. In the last year, I have not been able to just call up my friends and have them come over and model for me. So I’ve had to take a lot of pictures of myself and do this self-portrait style of work, which is really new for me. I hadn’t really it done before. They’re all sort of surreal and staged and have some costume involved. This was actually a great opportunity to keep doing that, but in a looser way that doesn’t have a super intense concept behind it. I got to just let loose a little bit, which was nice.

Had you depicted animal imagery before?

I actually did a series, maybe a year and a half ago, where I made these big papier-mâché pigeon heads. I had my friends wear them and dress up like they were going out to a club, and I took a bunch of photos of them in their evening wear and pigeon heads. I think that’s probably the last time I’ve done any animal-like things, but that was definitely more concrete than this one. I built and painted these heads to look like pigeons. This was definitely more freeform, more abstract.

How important was it to you to stay close to the subject matter? I think anyone who participates in this project needs to decide where they want to find that balance.

I obviously wanted to respond to it in some way, but I didn’t want to do it with just another drawing of a turtle or whatever. I didn’t want to directly copy, but I definitely wanted to respond in some way. So, I’d say like 50/50.

How many layers of photos am I looking at? Your body looks like it wouldn’t fit in there and I’m wondering how much manipulation you did.

Yeah, it’s photoshopped. I took the photo in my bedroom, which gets a lot of nice, natural light. I took the photo in there and then in my day-to-day travels I looked at different areas that I am near. I nanny for this family, and they live on the shore of this lake, and so I went down there and took some photos. We walked past a skate park and at one point I tried some there. So I have a few different backgrounds with my turtle body photoshopped into it.

The way you are curled up, I wasn’t sure if you manipulated your body in the photo.

Oh! No, I’m just short.

Oh great! Okay. I was going to ask you questions about body manipulation in photos, but it turns out you can roll up in a ball!

Yeah, not in this case. I have been working on a lot of other photos recently, though, where I’ve been in different positions, hidden behind an object or a piece of clothing, and have, you know, 15 arms sticking out and bunch of my legs. And so I actually have done a lot of photoshopping body manipulation recently so that’s funny.

If you think about when you started to work on this, and then the finished piece, is this is the piece that you set out to make?

In some ways. I actually live kind of near the mountains, and I would have loved it if I had had the time to drive up there and take some better photos. But I think with the time and the resources I had, yes. I think if I had started a little earlier, had a little longer time, I think I could have done more. The two-week deadline was nice, though, because it’s nice to finish things. I like to have that pressure a little bit. That was nice.

Do you have any advice for someone else approaching this project?

The best thing for me, and the most fun part, was just to not think too hard about it and just allow myself to play around with stuff, which I don’t usually let myself do as much. So that was really nice. I would definitely encourage people to play around and have fun with it.

Oh yeah, we’re allowed to have fun.

Yeah, I know! I forget sometimes!

Call Number: C49VA | C52VA.shaPe

Parker Shatkin is a multimedia artist focusing on unease and the absurdity of daily rituals and routines. Her work often takes the form of photography or is otherwise recorded as a way of blurring the line between what is and isn’t real, in an effort to synthesize internal and external sensations. She is currently based in Northern Colorado.