EverChanging: The Self Portrait Project

In Spring of 2018 I decided to start a long term self portrait project. I was a senior in college living in an off-campus apartment with friends in the theatre department and I knew life would be changing drastically as I graduated. I also knew that life would be turbulent and confusing and lead me to many places. That is when I decided I needed to photograph myself and these changes through my surroundings. So I set up my camera and photographed myself in my messy bedroom. I felt like it encompassed everything I had become up to that point. I wanted to be able to see myself grow throughout my young adulthood. This project became the way to do that.

W P Street, 2018

Spring, 2018. I was a few weeks away from leaving behind Bloomsburg, the place that had become my home over three years. I moved into this apartment the summer before and lived there by myself before my roommates joined me that fall. I went through a lot of tough times here, but they also led me to learn so much about myself. I spent more time making theatre than cleaning my room and that’s obvious from this photo, but I still love it. All my passions are exploding in my room around me. I loved that tapestry and kept it for a long time, well into my time in a studio apartment a few years later. I remember the moon would shine through that window into my bed at night and when it was full it was like a street lamp blaring into my window. Living here, I would spend many stressful moments walking down to the river to clear my head. You’ll see here I also finally have my pixie cut. This was the first time I cut my hair short and started to really feel like myself. Featured on the bed is my baby blanket that I’ve had my whole life. The space wasn’t perfect, but it was mine. 

W Pike, 2019

By 2018 I had graduated college and moved back into my childhood bedroom, pictured here. I lived there for a year, working as a housekeeper at a bed and breakfast while participating in community theatre. It was very strange being back in my parent’s house after being away and experiencing a different way of living. But there are things I love about how I made this space my own, even in my early twenties. I kept some of my childhood up, like that picture of the Empire State Building created by a student in my school that I bought at an art show and my dad made the frame by hand for me. The lamp on my bedside table was my grandmother’s and I adore it, though I don’t think it works correctly anymore. I loved my hat wall filled with various weird hats. It wasn’t always comfortable, but it was still mine. Eventually, I applied to a theatre apprenticeship located in Michigan. One night at a performance for a play I directed I had a thought: “I am not going to be here forever.” That night I checked my email and received news that I was selected for the apprenticeship. Then, it was on my way to Michigan! 

C Street, 2019

I had just a couple weeks to find housing and move to Michigan, so I hopped on Facebook Marketplace and found the least murderous sounding sublet I could find. This led me to meet some wonderful women that I lived with that summer. While I was mostly super busy with my apprenticeship and couldn’t hang out with them all the time, I really had wonderful moments with those people. I also was into roller skating at the time and would rollerskate around those wood floors in my bedroom and in the church parking lot across the street. La Croix had my heart that summer and you can see a can poking out of the left side of the frame. I am obsessed with my own attempt at putting in my air conditioner and just slapping tons of duct tape on it. I slept on someone else’s mattress and brought too many books from Pennsylvania that I didn’t end up reading. I found solace in Julien Solomita Twitch streams. I wasn’t very good at keeping up the with chore chart the roommates agreed upon. I struggled a lot with jumping into my apprenticeship and also trying to keep myself alive as a young adult. But it was a beautiful summer and I spent a lot of time wandering around the city enjoying myself.

L Lane, 2019

I took this one on the very last day I spent in this bedroom. The first sublet in Michigan only lasted the summer, leaving me to find somewhere new to live in September. I found a listing from a woman who lived with her dog and her college aged son who was renting out an extra bedroom. I took it up immediately. She was so sweet and I barely saw the son, plus the dog hung out in my bed a lot. I loved the color of this room and quickly filled it with my own mess, though that isn’t pictured here. While I forgot to photograph myself while the room was still fully intact, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to still photograph myself at that time. I was definitely struggling with my apprenticeship at this point and my mental health was plummeting. But I had decided to move out of this room because she was getting more renters and I didn’t want to share the house with more people. Plus, I found the perfect studio apartment for myself. 

E Street, 2020

This was my very first solo apartment and I adored it. It was my home. It became my safe space and my prison during the pandemic, where I spent five weeks alone with my cat who I acquired when a friend moved out of town. I went on strange dates and had weird boys over at this apartment. I decorated it exactly how I wanted. I painted my dining room table myself and then didn’t seal it correctly so the very first time I put hot tea on it, the paint came off. I built my own bedframe and got my first mattress. I really started to learn how to cook here. I became a true pet parent. I gained a lot of weight and a lot of confidence in myself as a theatre artist, but also I was entirely exhausted by my apprenticeship by the time COVID swept through Michigan.

CJK Road, 2021 

When COVID took over and ended my apprenticeship early I was lost and alone in Michigan. Sometime throughout that apprenticeship I had reconnected with an old friend over Facebook and we started dating long distance. I then went to his apartment in Pennsylvania that he shared with some friends of mine from college and another friend of theirs. What I thought would be a quick trip turned into me becoming the fifth roommate in an old farm house surrounded by a Mennonite community. I fell deeper in love in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania and survived a pandemic with some lovely friends. It was a confusing and beautiful time and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it with anyone else. 

Today

Now, the project has not come to an end, it’s just currently paused, as I have lived in the same apartment with my love for four years now. Once we start to move I will take my next portrait and the process will continue. I am incredibly thankful to have this documentation of my young twenties and all the different places I’ve lived and grown during that time.