Reader of the Week: Rachel Wolfe
Photographer, poet, baker, pianist, artist extraordinaire
By Lindsey Underwood
Published: August 3rd, 2009 | 9:55am
Reader of the week, Rachel Wolfe does it all. She writes, sings, bakes, dances, plays the piano, and snaps some awesome photographs. Check out what she had to say about staying motivated, what photography means to her, and indecision.
Where do you live? What do you like most about living there?
To make things simple, I often tell people I live in Lincoln Square. More specifically, I'm currently living with my husband and our two well-fed cats in the North Center area of Chicago. North Center has a really friendly and diverse atmosphere. Between two great parks and being in walking distance of Julius Meinl, the library, Brown Line stops, the German culture and all the other amazing things in this area, so far I am loving it!
How’d you get into photography?
Back in the eighth grade, I decided I wanted to be a photographer. I used to set up fashion shoots with my friends, dressing them up and posing them. I got my first real camera for Christmas in '98 and experimented a bit. I explored a lot of other creative avenues, painting, drawing, and all of that, but for the longest time didn't really go full into photography. Even in college, I studied interior design, advertising, and graphic design, basically everything but photography. Instead, I photographed whenever I had the chance between classes, work, driving, walking. It was just something I always did. I was constantly absorbing photographs, researching, analyzing. Those years in college, working really hard for a degree I honestly cared little for, eventually pushed a love for photography into a full blown obsession with the medium. After I graduated, I photographed everything. I couldn't be stopped. My camera came with me everywhere. I feel like my whole life, everything that has happened, the good, the amazing, even the awful, has just pushed me further, deeper into my desire to express myself with what I can compose through photography. It's almost as if photography was always a part of me, waiting for the right time to be discovered, rather than something for me to get into. Everyday I have the opportunity to discover something new, uncover an idea, an angle, see something in a new light.
Where do you see that going?
My photography will always be with me, will always be a work in progress. I plan to show more of my work in the near future. As far as the long term goes, I have begun drafting up plans to take photography from a central role in an exhibition to a participating role in a three dimension space, in a conceptual installation. I'm really excited about it! I have to slow myself down and remember one day at a time. Physically, the idea is large and demanding. Emotionally, I think the journey to creating my installation and even just going out there and showing my work more is going to be more complex. It's funny, most photographers started on film and have transitioned to digital. I'm from the digital era, that's all I've really worked with in the past. Lately, I've been using film, and plan to make a transition to primarily using film. At least as far as my artwork goes — digital is hard to beat when it comes to more commercial or portrait work. I'm a tactile person though. I need to feel with my hands what I am doing, to feel when I am seeing, that photograph has more depth, looks as if it has texture. As far as I can see from here, film, digital, exhibition or installation, there is no end to the work.
How do you stay inspired?
I get out of bed. I live. I'm serious! It seems so simple and silly, but for me that's all it takes. As far as what pushes me to make work, I have an artist statement and statements about my works written on my website.
Tell me a bit about your poetry.
I call the writing I do poetry because I haven't found a better word to quickly communicate what I feel I'm trying to do with words. To me it's creating a verbal composition much like conceptualizing and taking a photograph. Writing lets me explore, play with words. Often I feel they are just catapulted from thin air into my brain demanding I throw them through a pen to a page of paper. I have little to no formal training in the writing poetry. I have only studied the poets I adore and admire including songwriters. If I were to use the word poetry I would do so in this fashion: PO.ET.RY! With vigor! POETRY! Like Marc Smith says it. That is how I feel it, write it, and sometimes perform it at The Green Mill. I love that Uptown Poetry Slam just about as much as I like writing. I digress. To explain more specifically, my writing flows out of me as a wave, ebbing and flowing with moons and seasons. Sometimes I write in my head and can't seem to get them down fast enough on paper. Other times I sit down and focus on what I want to write about, but I always write longhand. I need direct contact with a pen and paper to get it right.
What do you do for a living?
Get by. Truly, that is all I do right now. I took a deep breath and left the copywriting work I was doing to pursue my work full time. So now, I pick up what I can do whenever I can as long as it doesn't interfere with the mission that I'm on now — to make and share my art. I enjoy helping the arts in any way that I can, so if I return to a more regular type of work, it would be through a museum, educational institution, or someplace that would still allow me to create my work but also share the joy of creating, making life better through self expression, culture, all the miracles in photography, writing, and the arts.
You say you are a “writer, artist, dancer, pianist, singer, baker, poet, theorist, environmentalist” — how do you balance it all?
All of these things began during my childhood. I just never stopped doing them. At different points in my life I've made a living doing a combination of all of those things, and the few that I haven't yet, I have plans to do so. I had to make sacrifices along the way, but to not do or further my interests and abilities would seem unnatural. At this point, they're all interrelated. Really, what I think is more important to recognize is that we all are a million different things on any given day. We are more than job titles and cultivating our natural desires is vital not only to our own sanity but also for the evolution of society and humankind. I think now, more than ever, this is becoming a challenge as people become more involved in digital technology. It's so easy to spend all day on a computer or TV and not accomplish anything. But I think living life in a way that maintains a certain level of perspective is important. I would never want to look back on a month, a week, or a day and feel like I didn't learn something, discover something or do something that brings joy to me and to those around me. Balance isn't easy, but at the end of the day it's always worthwhile. Living without regret and with the feeling of peace following your joy offers, is a gift much larger than anything I'm currently capable of expressing in the written word.
If you had to pick the last song you’d ever hear, what would you pick?
This could possibly be one of the hardest questions I've ever been asked! Choosing any one thing has always been the hardest thing for me to do. I used to blame it on being a Libra, but to be honest, I just love so many different things. Perhaps, in this moment, I would like to hear "Across the Universe." The song just puts me in such a serene and peaceful mood and it doesn't seem to matter what mood I was in to begin with. The simplicity of the song really lets its purpose and meaning shine through. Although, if you asked me this tomorrow and I can still hear, I would probably think of something else.
Issue #44
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kombizz (over 2 years)
It is a nice article about Rachel and her hobbies, activities in her life. Good luck to her and her future projects. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kombizz/sets/