In the summer of 2021, on the way home from a long road trip to visit family in Louisiana, I had a lot of time on my hands. Being a self-taught artist, I reflected on the choices I had made over the years in developing my skills as a photographer. As I did that, I began to be curious about talking to some other autodidactics, exploring what intersections (if any) existed between my path and theirs.
The project started when I courageously asked Eli Lambert, a woodworker, if he would let me photograph and interview him, after just meeting him in his alley in Merion Village during one of my long morning walks. That day the project was born. Over the course of five months I obsessively worked, meeting with a total of fifteen creatives, taking precautions when possible (we were still in a pandemic), recording interviews, asking questions, capturing candid images, and joining these fascinating people in crafting narratives about their artistic journeys.
What did I learn from this experience? Probably the most important thing was that there are as many paths as there are artists, that we all learn in ways that uniquely suit our neurology, life experience, heritage, interests and abilities. Maybe I also realized the paradox that we are all both entirely self-taught, while simultaneously interconnected, that the process of creating is like a balancing act of both independence and interdependence.
With a long list of creatives left to interview, I abandoned the project in November 2021, primarily due to issues relating to my mental health, as well as concerns surrounding being indoors with others, due to COVID 19. In a way, the project is ongoing–even though I am not currently interviewing creatives (nor have any plans to do so), the experience I gained and the connections I made imprinted indelibly in me. They continue to inform my own work, as well as open me to the work and life experiences of others.
Note: Many elements of the accounts retold in these interviews represent the individuals’ lives at one particular moment in time. Humans by nature (and perhaps even more so, creatives in particular) are subject to change. Much of what was going on in the lives of the artists I interviewed may no longer be true, or even represent the direction their work has taken. I still feel it was a great honor to spend time with each one of them, and I’m still in touch with many of them, and am enjoying watching them evolve not just as creatives, but as humans. May your witness of this project be a blessing to you, as its unfolding has been for me.
