‘I wanted to make a perfect square with my body. My back hurt for days afterwards. People often want to know if the kitten is real’
I
’ve thought a lot about the time I made this image. In my 20s, I was living in New York. Then I broke up with my long-term partner in 2019 and I sort of didn’t really know how to cope any more. I didn’t feel creative – my whole experience of living in New York was tied to that relationship, and I felt I needed to go somewhere else and start over. I moved to Austin, Texas – I thought I’d give it a go for a bit.
I was doing a lot of tinkering at home, and I started doing a lot more self-portraits and let my psyche run wild. At this point, in 2021, one of my friends, Mike, was living in a 1940s building in East Austin, with old popcorn ceilings, really cool mouldings and outlet covers and original details, including the fireplace. It was inspiring to be there.
I was having a bad day and I called Mike to ask if I could come over with my tripod. I knew I wanted to shoot with the fireplace, but I was unclear what the idea was. I am always balanced between these two modes in my practice – between knowing exactly what I’m doing and not. The fireplace was set up pretty much exactly as you see it in this image, I just switched out the bowling trophy he had on the mantelpiece for an artwork that I took from his bathroom. I was thinking about how I was relearning as an adult, and the old lesson people tell kids: “Don’t play with fire.” That’s where the title of the image came from – Learned a Lesson Then Forgot It.
