I can feel the air getting less sad, even on the grayest day. Something shifted and I’m unsure if it’s internal or if everyone else can feel it too. But it was a rough winter. I neglected this email list slightly - my goal of 1/month hit a little speed bump, but we are so back! Every year without fail, I feel like I’m crawling out of winter on all fours — feral. Truthfully, I love the indulgence winter permits - and this year for me especially, reeling with grief and stress. But coming out the other side of things, there’s a glimmer of…something. Still navigating the tides of losing a close family member, global and local news getting worse and worse each day, and barely living paycheck to paycheck, but goddamn does the sun feel nice when it’s out these days.
I’ve also been shooting with a bit more frequency. I feel like I kind of got thrown from routine and also felt like I was making the same picture over and over last year. I had the intention of making work within my means — and that meant shooting in my ‘home studio’ (read: my spare room that just fits a backdrop). But truthfully I know even a spare room in New York is beyond a luxury, so I make the most of it. But the options are limited re: backgrounds, angles, and lighting positions. It was feeling monotonous. But each time I discover some new thing I can do in this space, it’s very exciting. I have driven myself into debt making my work — paying for trips to shoot different people, in different spaces, paying for film and processing, printing, framing, etc. with very minimal return. It used to just sustain itself, but in the past year or so, it hasn’t even done that and I have gone into the red. I am really going to try (because I have no alternative) this year to live within my meager means and try to not feel like my art practice is failing as result. To that end, I think I may be shooting less and focusing on the images I’ve already made — perhaps making prints in the darkroom and really perfecting the images I’ve already taken.
But the one shoot I did recently [pictured above] was in a brand new — to me — space. It was a grungy basement gymnasium attached to a church in Bushwick. And one of the models’ generous submissives paid for the rental of this space for a couple of hours to make the photos. I am extremely grateful, and it’s also an avenue of patronage I need to explore further. How lovely to have some subs who want to fund glamorous photoshoots! But the wide open space, I forgot what it was like! Lights could be shaped, played with, utilized to their full potential.
Speaking of making the same image over and over (lol)… but I can’t help it! I’ve been obsessed with this plastic sheeting as a backdrop in conjunction with cinderblocks as a set piece or posing furniture. It certainly creates a very specific vibe that resonates with me at the moment — a sort of void, no space, with a little element of basement, danger, murder scene, home reno sexy. And I enjoy having through lines in my portraits, even of different people. The same underwear, a nice thick chain, cinderblocks, my sad little hospital bed. Anyway, below are a few examples of recent work, in my home studio. It gets the job done!
As always, thank you for taking the time to read my silly little emails and for being subscribed to my list to begin with! I’m making progress on updating my website, so feel free to peruse that as well: stevenharwick.com. My store got a facelift at the start of the year, and I’m really quite proud of how it looks now: boundleatherzine.com. Both, in my opinion, read nicer on a desktop; however, mobile is still fine. I also updated the header of these emails, and I think the layout and logo are really sexy now.
Finally, I’d love to link you to a playlist I made with the phrase du jour: crawling out of winter on all fours [via apple music]. I made it a year or two ago, but it holds up and is appropriate for how I’m feeling now.
Lots of love in leather & life,
Steven Harwick