There is an exciting artistry to the work of Michèle Taylor, and it was wonderful being able to feature her in Issue No. 8 of Living the Photo Artistic Life. Whether armed with a DSLR or an iPhone, Michèle never fails to impress …
Q: What’s your background as an artist? And what about that has influenced your photo artistry?
Michèle Taylor: Like many people, I was told in school that I couldn’t do art (and how many years have been lost to that particular untruth!) … I felt uncomfortable that my creativity had been dismissed so easily, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to challenge it. I knew I had an ‘eye’ for art, I just didn’t know how to express it. So I turned to words and to performing. I worked in the theatre for a long time and I always assumed that that would be my sole artistic endeavor …
A few years ago, an experienced actor whom I was directing in a play commented that my approach is very cinematic and he suggested I look at directing film. To be honest, although I love watching films, it’s not an area that calls to me. But I’ve recently started to realize what he meant, as my natural way of looking at the world has been reawakened. And there’s something here for me about framing … When I’m directing a play, I’m working with the stage as my frame; and you may have noticed that my images always have white space in them, sometimes just a narrow white border and sometimes a more substantial space around the main content or even as part of the image itself. I suppose, for me, it just doesn’t feel right not to arrange the work within white space when I create — space to let the image breathe. Framing.
And as I started to explore this, and as I explain it in an Adobe Spark presentation I recently made, I noticed having my iPhone with me all the time quite literally means that I can always take a photograph, so my sense of ‘framing’ the world around me has increased dramatically. It literally and metaphorically helps me see what’s around me.
Q: What inspires you as an artist?
Michèle Taylor: First and foremost, other artists’ work. As my own artistic life develops, I love that my hunger to see the work of others continues to grow as well. Being part of the various Facebook groups springing from the original Photoshop Artistry course means that my Facebook feed is pretty much 90% beautiful photography and photo-art, and I love that.
I’ve probably been to see more exhibitions in the last 18 months than in the whole of the preceding ten years! Photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron (was she the ‘mother’ of photo-artistry? I like to think so), Lee Miller, Paul Strand, and Sebastio Salgado. And also artists like Georges Braque, Sonia Delaunay, and the really delightful surprise for me, Agnes Martin. If you’d have told me even three years ago, that I would sit in a room with an Agnes Martin painting and want no more from the next hour or so than to be able to sit and be with it, honestly I would not have believed you. All those lovely lines and grids and rectangles and glorious empty space! A painting has never moved me in that way before.
I also read a lot and subscribe to a number of magazines. All this inspires me. Some have tips and techniques but mostly it’s about taking inspiration from other people’s vision.
Other than that, I’m really lucky in that I get to travel quite a bit with work as well as having opportunity to explore the British Isles on short breaks, and I never fail to be inspired by the places I visit.
Q: What does “living the photo artistic life” mean to you?
Michèle Taylor: It means staying curious, welcoming each and every opportunity. Looking up (literally, looking up) as well as down, noticing the detail, the breadth …
However, more than anything else, it means staying true to the words of Dolly Parton (I know! But really, the woman has wisdom) when she says, “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” That is my absolute favourite quotation of all time and it resonates so powerfully with the journey I’m on.
Another favourite quotation is from Thomas Merton, the great mystic, who said, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” and that’s it, that’s what the photo-artistic life at its best does for me. It’s intensely spiritual and that’s not only okay, it’s vital. For me, anyway.
So maybe if I could combine those two quotations, it would read something like: “Find out who you so you can do it on purpose and lose yourself in the process.”
There you go, Dolly Parton and Thomas Merton in one short interview. That right there is the photo-artistic life!
Q: What are the most important things you’ve learned in your journey as an artist?
Michèle Taylor: I’ve learned to trust my gut. I’ve learned the difference between an image that I’ve made and an image that is MINE. I’ve learned to honour the moment when I’m working on a piece and it suddenly becomes Mine. I will never forget the first time I made an image as part of the AWAKE course and I recognized it as Mine. I genuinely did not care what anyone else thought of it. It was nice to get positive comments, but they had no currency for me in terms of how I valued the piece or myself as its creator.
Related to that, I’ve learned to focus on my own voice. Just because I can work in a particular style doesn’t mean that it’s going to be satisfying or authentic to do so. It might be useful practice, it might help me develop a technique or open up a subject area, but it’s probably not going to be the art that is me putting myself out into the world.
Q: Putting yourself out into the world … What would you say is next for you along that path?
Michèle Taylor: I received an e-mail on Friday from an accomplished calligrapher who wants to know if I’m interested in a collaboration. I met her last year when I did a weekend beginners’ course with her and she has been watching the development of my photography and photo-art on Facebook. Her reaction to my work prompted her to get in touch, despite the fact that she’s never before collaborated with anyone.
Of course I said, “Yes!” We neither of us know what it might be or even how we might go about it, but we’ll certainly make it happen …
Other than that, I’m on a quest for more learning, more thinking, more reflecting. Specifically, I want to learn to bring more intentionality to my photo-artistry without losing the instinctive way I work. Someone once said, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,” and I would love to be able to create photo-art that does that. I’ve a way to go. But that’s okay, it’s a good journey!