Pa02Aug21a Jessie Mann
Posted by NFiH on Saturday, August 17 2002
[I] think this is from her Aperture interview; I found it on Usenet:
I think what's changed most in the way I feel about my mother's prints is that I don't look at them as pictures of me any longer. There's a point when you just have to look at them and appreciate what's meaningful about them as photographs rather than thinking, "Oh, that was the day we caught that really big fish". Because that's how other people see them. It's interesting now for me to look at their artistic significance. Maybe the pictures are more magical and mysterious and meaningful to me than they are to other people -- although I've spoken to people who seem to pick up on the magic of that location and of our childhood, and seem to understand it as if they were there, because they can see it in the photographs. So it's interesting for me to see if I can feel what other people are getting from the prints.
When we were taking pictures, it created a relationship with Mom that's very different than other people's relationships -- much more powerful. I just read The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie, in which the main character is painted by his mother throughout his whole life, and he talks about how this creates a completely different bond between mother and child. Because there already is a very powerful bond, then add to that the bond between artist and subject, and think about artists who study one subject for most of their lives, and the bond that they must have, the artistic bond. ... On top of being our mother, she became a whole lot more. So that made our relationship stronger, but of course more complicated.
At some point, we realized this work was consequential, which I think was another side effect. Then later on, we became aware of the controversy the work was creating, and that made us question -- well, what were her motives in taking the photographs? I don't mean anything sexual or negative -- but we were hearing a lot of "bad mother" stuff, so it made us question her more than most children might question their mothers. So that added yet another layer of intensity to our relationship.
Up until recently Virginia, Emmett and I haven't really discussed all of it very much. But now Emmett and I talk about it occasionally. We're at the point where questions have to be asked, as be begin to march out into the future, and we have to look back on our childhood. There's a reconciliation all children have with their parents once they get out of their teenage years. We're getting to it, but with a lot more issues to deal with: about the intensity and the conflict and the mother-child relationship when it's also artist-child. Maybe it was a harder childhood -- or a more complicated one -- than other children have.
But the other side of the coin is, we enjoyed being photographed. It gave us a sense of beauty. When you're around an artist all the time, you're always reminded of what's beautiful and what's special, and you can't forget it. Now, even though we are grown up -- and Emmett and I are in college and living apart from her, and Ginna has begun boarding school -- we still have that reminder. We got to travel, and meet a lot of great people, and had all this great exposure. So we have to factor those experiences into the moving-out on to our own things.
People don't usually recognize me now. I mean, very rarely. But the three of us have gained this strange status in society. It's different than child movie stars -- we're sort of "art stars". But child art stars. No one really knows where we stand. But sometimes I'll meet people and they say, "Oh, I've just followed you; you're my favorite of the kids". And I think, "Favorite one? ..." It's very odd: the pictures are so significant to so many people that it can be very weird to me.
It's not something we can escape. The best analogy I have for it is for the Glass family in the Salinger novels, and how each one of them handled growing out of that childhood celebrity and becoming their own people. Two of them went in to the movie business, and one shot himself, and one seemed to drop off the face of the earth. They all had to deal with this child celebrity, childhood significance.
It's weird now when people say, "Well, now what are you gong to do?" For so long, what we did was model -- and that's what we did. And now we have to choose another career, at a time when most people are looking for their first career. We've had this great experience, we've met some of the great minds of our time, and we've lived with on the other great minds of our time [Laughs] -- so how are we going to use that? Are we ever going to be able to live up to the significance of the experiences we've had, or live up to our mother?
Each of us is dealing with that pressure in a very different way. Emmett is completely daunted by it. He doesn't know what he wants, so he backs away from the whole thing: he's sometimes afraid to have any goals or aspirations, doesn't want to get too involved or too intense. Mom is a very driven person, and really has little understanding of people who aren't that driven. Emmett has got to sort it out on his own. He and I are very close. Kind of like Franny and Zooey, we keep each other together. We help each other out. Nobody can understand what I'm going through like he can.
Ginna, on the other hand, was a lot younger than Emmett and me when those pictures were taken, so I think the experience for her was completely different. Her attitude right now is: "I want to have a normal life; I want to forget about this; I don't want to have to use it to my advantage; I don't want to either be living up to something or living down to something; I'm just going to be living". She's trying to go the middle road more than I've ever seen, trying to be "normal". And coming out of our family, that takes a lot of effort. ... Ginna wants to be like everybody else, and these pictures have made that difficult. One of the things that Mom did best was always allow us to sort of go for it, to find out who we were, no matter what the cost. When I wanted to shave my head, she was there with the clippers. "Do it. Have fun. Explore yourself. I'm not going to tell you who you are". For me, that was a really great freedom, but I don't think Ginna responded to the whole situation like that.
I feel -- because I've had all these experiences, and met all these people, and had conversations most other kids my age probably haven't had -- that I have a responsibility to utilize these experiences in my future. Which is a lot to ask of myself. But not more than I can do. I'm not saying that I'm going to expect to be anything like my mother. I just want to do something that is meaningful, that has a significance outside just making a living. I think that's what I've been taught by all this.
I have a very clear-cut idea about what I want to do with my future, and I think in many ways that's like Mom: we both know exactly what we're going to do and how we#re going to get there. I want to be an obstetrician/gynecologist. I think that comes from my feeling of needing to do something significant, outside just surviving and providing. I think education about birth control and providing birth control and abortion for women is the best thing. ... It's what our country needs most, because no doctors will become abortion doctors anymore. They're scared. I guess -- like Mom's work, in an way -- it's doing something that makes people uncomfortable but that needs to be done. She said something that no one wanted to hear, but it had to be said.
There are so many levels to childhood that we as a society ignore, or don't accept. Rather than just saying it, she was able to capture it with photographs. It's easy to discount these things unless you can really see them in the kids' eyes, or see it in their actions.
I also think she brought out a certain sexuality in children that nobody wants to think about. Some people still have real problems with the pictures. ... I'll make a friend, and eventually I'll say, "I wonder if I'm ever going to meet your parents?" And the person will answer, "Well, my Mom really opposes your mother's work, so you may not want to come over." I used to get all riled up about it. But now I understand -- it's hard for people. I think if you have a certain background or beliefs those photographs could be upsetting or offensive. I don't agree with that point of view, but maybe there's something to their idea that that part of children shouldn't be played up. I can accept someone else's point of view about it. It's only when they start passing judgment about me as a person or my mother as a person that it gets to me.
All three of us are very defensive of Mom because of this, so it's hard to look back and wonder, "Well, what if the photos hadn't been there?" I know, no matter what, there would have been an amazing strain on my relationship with Mom. We're very similar -- it's just the way we are made up. There was no way we were going to live together compatibly! But on some level, there's always the question: would things have been easier if it hadn't been for the photographs? Yet at the same time, with them we wouldn't have had these extraordinary opportunities.
With Dad, the best analogy I can come up with is that Mom, Emmett, Virginia and I -- we're all drama queens, actors on a stage, doing our thing and putting on a performance. But Dad is the stage. Without him, we wouldn't have the emotional support we need to keep going. He's there to work between all these strong characters and keep everything together. He's a lawyer; he plays this very simple but absolutely essential role. He keeps us all sane. I can't imagine it's much fun for him. Well, keeping us on peaceful terms is probably good for him, too. He's really needed.
When Aperture published Immediate Family, Mom and Dad sat us down, we had a family meeting. They asked, "Are you going to be okay with this?" Dad was a big part of making sure we really were okay; they sent us to a couselor to make sure we were okay with it. We were all pretty young, so I don't think anyone could have had any idea what it was really going to be like. But if I were back at that table today, making the decision, I'd still say, "Go ahead. Show them."
As a result of her upbringing, Mom's a little reserved. She isn't touchy-affectionate. She has a hard time letting us know how much she loves us. But I've also realized that each one of those photographs was her way of capturing, somehow -- if not in a hug or a kiss or a comment -- how much she cared about us, but obviously didn't have the ability to show us. Each one of those photographs is an affirmation of love. To me, it seems like she's overwhelmed with this feeling of love and she doesn't know what to do with it, so she photographs it.
It think that there's something similar going on with her landscapes. She won't admit to any religious or spiritual tendencies, and laughs at anyone who has them -- "Oh, Jessie, you and your spiritual-growth thing again." But I've never seen anything so spiritual as those landscapes. It's her capturing -- her understanding of God, her understanding of what life is about. Even though she'd never say it, she'd never tell anyone that's what she's photographing -- and she'll probably disagree with me - it's there. Because she catches the meaning of the beauty around here.
I had a drinking problem from the time I was thirteen, and that's been the number-one strain on my relationship with my Mom. I was one of those awful kids to raise. Last year I finally asked for help, and got it. And through that, I sort of found spirituality. My day-to-day life is a lot about gratitude now. I'm grateful to have a good relationship with my mother for the first time since I was a child, and to be here and to be surviving and to go to school, and to know that my bad side didn't derail me, that I didn't give in and that I didn't do it by myself, that I got help -- I'm acknowledging that.
It took a lot of strength. But also it came easily in a way. Because the bottom I hit was such a bottom and I was so ready to get out of it. I knew I was in trouble and I had known it for a while; I got to the point where I understood I wasn't going to live if I kept behaving the way I was behaving. Then help just came -- it seemed that everything I needed was there all of a sudden, everywhere. And I thought, "Wow, I've gotten everything I was told I was going to be given if I quit drinking, and I've gotten everything I've asked of my personal God." And that's such an amazing feeling of affirmation. I believe there's light within everyone; that every time you have a personal, touching moment with someone -- that's God. And every time you take a ride down a country road that's so pretty you don't know what to do, that's God. All of these are reminders.
It's funny, talking about this, looking at these pictures again -- I'm reminded how much I love it here, how this will always be my home. I'll graduate from college, go to medical school, and then come back here and have my little clinic. I think it will be great. I'll have the Planned Parenthood aspect of my clinic, dispensing free birth control, abortions, whatever's needed; then I'll have the obstetrician-gynecologist role. I'll be able to take care of these women and their children; it will be a very family-oriented clinic. Upstairs we'll have bassinet-making classes and Lamaze classes. ...
I wish I could skip the whole education part and go right to it!
-- Jessie Mann