The “Mannequin Moment”
I have always been a storyteller. And the world is full of stories. It has been my passion to tell these stories, first through painting, then through sets and environments I designed in film and television, and now through photography. Why photography? Because one photograph contains a world. One photograph can tell us everything we need to know about someone in a particular moment, time, and place. One photograph can be an escape, or a safe haven, or a terrible reminder. That’s what a single photograph has always been for me. Now, using the visual narrative of feature films, I selectively reveal some universal truth filtered through my personal emotional lens. The shot is instant, it is timely, and it provides the perfect fusion of idea and creator in a single frame.
The narrative portraits that I create in the MY MANNEQUIN MOMENT series depict that transcendent moment when we know, we really, really know, that we are not meant to be where we are, or be doing what we are doing, or that whatever it is we are involved with, or think, is neither for our highest good nor in our best interest; that it does not reflect our authentic selves. How many of us have had moments like these? All of us. We all have accepted ideas, or played roles, or have been in situations and relationships that were not really what we wanted, or were not what we thought we wanted. We are born into belief systems that carve grooves in our minds about success, normalcy, power, sex, inferiority, superiority, race, class, masculinity, femininity, and beauty. At what point do we stop listening to the voices placed in our heads and start listening to that one true Voice within us, our sacred Self? That’s the “Mannequin Moment.” And why do mannequins represent this? Because they are abstracted idealizations of human beings that (supposedly) embody unattainable perfection. They are false dreams personified – literally. So I use these simulacra as surrogates for my subjects at their decisive moment when they no longer fit in; when the veil is lifted. My hope and desire in creating these portraits is that the viewers recognize themselves in them, see and feel their own struggles, knowing they are not alone. And, in this knowing, they are empowered to step into their own greater, beautiful, authentic unfolding.
