We recently connected with Diana Hardage and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Diana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?
Every artist has a different methodology for processing their ideas and potentially turning them into material objects. For me, most of my ideas come to me in dreams or right before I’m about to fall asleep so I try to jot a loose idea down before I go to bed. Usually, I get a vision of the project as a whole and then the creative process is just me trying to replicate the image in my mind as best as possible. For my most recent body of work “Until I Can’t Anymore” I knew I wanted black and white images with spikey picture frames that I hand made from clay. The subject matter of the images sort of fell into place after that. Moving from idea to creation was actually a very slow process for this work. I had to start hand making the spikes months in advance as I ended up with a thousand of them. The actual shoot for the project happened all in one night so it was a strange transition to go from a slow melodic process to a wild one night shoot wear I was riding a bike in a dress in 20 degree weather or dunking my head in a bucket of water to create the illusion of the shot being taken from underwater. Developing the film and scanning my negatives was the most familiar thing I had to do for this project so I felt very comfortable with that. It wasn’t until it was time to assemble the frames over the images that I started to really doubt my process. The image of the whole project together was so strong in my minds eye but looking at all the pieces disassembled I was worried it wouldn’t come together.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Diana Hardage and I am a photographer turned artist currently based in New York City. I got into photography by taking classes in high school. At first I didn’t take the class seriously because of my disinterest in school at the time. However, I was really lucky to have an amazing photo teacher in high school who inspired me to start actually trying to make good photos. At first I was just doing silly shoots with my friends. I love fashion so I would style my friends and take them to a location and just mess around. I started getting really obsessed with taking pictures of women in nature. As a young girl and amateur photographer I was really inspired by Justine Kurlands “Girl Pictures” series. During this time I was learning the basic rules of photography, lighting, framing, and learning how to make stylistic choices, things like that. By the time I graduated high school I had felt really confident with a digital camera but when I got to college I started learning how to shoot and develop my own film and how to print my images in a darkroom. In my opinion digital and film photography are two different art forms, because the process for each, in my experience, is so different. When I started shooting film the subject matter of my work changed for a while, I felt like I was learning a new language to the one I previously thought I’d gotten pretty good at. Eventually once I got comfortable with film, I knew I didn’t want to go back to digital. I liked working analog, it made more sense to my brain and also i’m not very tech savvy so in the long run it ended up being easier for me. This is also the reason to why I almost never work in a studio and prefer to use natural light. After finally getting over the learning curve of film photography I could finally focus on making my work conceptual and not just for fun. In the second semester of my freshman year of college I took a multi-media art class and started working with more sculptural elements. The final project of that class included cyanotypes, black and white film, and a sculpture I had made. The work was titled “I’m Upset” and it was about climate change and the over consumption of plastic and about how my connection to nature as a women is dying as the planet becomes more polluted. I’m a huge advocate for climate justice and its defidently one of the main things I center my work around. Another theme that I often work with is my feminine perspective of a patriarchal society. In one of my most recent works I have also touched on the subject of addiction in adolescence and how the portrayal of teenage addiction in mass media can be damaging by romanticizing the topic. Aside from my personal fine art work I have also worked with the band Whitworth, documenting the making of their first album and two tours. I love documentary work however I wouldn’t say that its my niche. My personal goal as an artist is to just express the things I can’t find the words to say. Which is really difficult when I’m constantly being forced to use words to defend my work. I feel a lot and I have trouble turning my feelings into words and life can be… overwhelming to say the least, so making art is the way I deal with that and the language I use to communicate my emotions. My hope is that maybe I can communicate things for other people through my art that they also have a hard time finding words for. If anything I just want to make people feel something, even if its negative. I don’t really need to make an impact with my work, I am more interested in making a connection, making myself and others feel less alone.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I have been an artist for 5 years now. In those 5 years there have only been two times where I visualize a project in my head and then what I create perfectly replicates that. When that happens, its like electric, I can’t tell you how much joy it brings me. Especially because I am an obsessive worker and often find myself loosing my mind a little when I’m super in vested in a project. I get so wrapped up in perfection which creates a lot of anxiety for me about the final outcome of a project. So when I can actually get the image in my head into material form, it feels very rewarding. Another thing that I have to mention is whenever I receive ANY amount of praise from my friends. I get super uncomfortable at shows or openings because I don’t receive communal praise well but, when it’s just me and my friends getting to talk about a project that I’m working on and they approve my of idea, or i’ve just gotten film back from a shoot I did with my friends and they really like the photos…That stuff means the world to me. Even more so because majority of my friends are artists as well who are all very talented in their own right so I’m very lucky to be able to collaborate and brainstorm ideas with them. I wouldn’t be able to make work without them modeling for me or keeping me sane when I start to loose it so getting to work with my friends it always very rewarding.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I want to preface this by saying I in no way have mastered this yet and am still very much learning how to not do this but… A huge lesson I’ve had to unlearn is my tendency to feel like the first draft of a project has to be the final. Since i’ve primarily been working under the context of school, there are deadlines you have to meet and whatnot so often times I only have one shot to get the project right on the first time. This leads me to feel rushed and stressed because the stakes are higher. The pro to this is that I’ve learned to make presentable work quickly and it’s taught me how to make final decisions on the fly. However, I’ve really had to remind myself that just because a project doesn’t come out on the first try doesn’t make it garbage forever. As I mentioned earlier I am a perfectionist with my work and I often work in an obsessive manner which can create stress when you only have one chance to get it right. Now I am learning to work with drafts and to not be to hard on myself when something doesn’t come out the first time.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @d1anahardage
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-812842426
Image Credits
All work/Photographs made by Diana Hardage