Posted on
2021-06-24
Emma Elizabeth Tillman – the Los Angeles based American artist, photographer, writer and director – ends her emails ‘sent from the wings of an angel’ and after talking with her for five minutes you can see why. Tillman’s is sweet and funny and tells me about her latest beautiful project, a new book of self-portraits entitled Masterpiece. We caught up after she’s just come back from Big Sur because, of course she has, why wouldn’t she…
How was Big Sur? Did you have a good trip? I’m very jealous…
Big Sur was beautiful, as always. I grew up camping with my family there as a child, and my husband and I were married there in 2013, so it holds a very special place in my heart. We go back often and are lucky enough to have friends who live tucked up into the mountains overlooking the ocean, so our time spent there is very peaceful and full of the magic Big Sur holds.
With all the madness going on right now, what’s something you learned in the last year?
I’ve learned many things. In fact, my entire life has been rearranged by the experience in the most profound ways. Perhaps most importantly, I made a very conscious shift away from decadence. It’s a process I had been moving toward naturally in the last few years, maybe as a consequence of getting older, but the pandemic made me realize what a three-ring circus the world has become, and how utterly fragile the systems we rely on really are. One small glitch and the whole thing goes to hell. When confronted with utter stillness, and utter fragility in the face of all that came before, I think many people realized we could never go back to that timbre of madness, myself included. I do wonder if it will stick, though. As the world opens up it seems we’re up to our same old tricks…
I heard you take pictures every day? How did that work with the lockdowns in California?
I have gone through phases of living through my camera, feeling compelled to capture everything that was important to me. Lately however, I’ve been taking pictures with my eyes, reminding myself that I can simply live with the images in my mind instead of creating a tangible artifact on film.
How did growing up in Santa Barbara influence you? I love that your father worked with sailboats.
Growing up in Santa Barbara was very influential for me. I was privy to a few unique subcultures that gave me a foundation of self that I am appreciative of. My family had a unique living situation on a boat, and my father’s profession as a sailmaker and his love of the ocean and surfing tied me to a very physical way of looking at the world. The smells, the direction of the wind, the size of the swell, the plants and animals of the ocean in our immediate surroundings. I think my work is imbued with an appreciation for feeling, which surely came from growing up on the ocean and the very tactile way you must interact with those surroundings and their power and their mystery.
What makes your work so special is that it’s an honest, physical record of growth and love. It’s a preservation of a particular space and time in your life. And it’s so dreamy yet ultra raw and real. Where does your love of mystery come from?
Thank you, what a beautiful thing to say. The real answer is, I don’t know where that comes from but it is imbued in everything that I do, or at least I aspire to have it be imbued in everything I do. At the end of a day where I feel like I communicated only in a straightforward, linear way, or talked only of logistics or practicalities feels disappointing to me. Like I haven’t lived up to the expectation from the world to appreciate the mystery of life.
Your photographs always feel like summer to me. What do you look for when making an image?
I look at light most closely. I have mentioned this in other interviews but I don’t use a light meter, and the one in my camera is broken, so I have to make a photograph all on feel. When I see the light casting a certain spell then I start to look at the lines and shapes and if they are pleasing, I’ll make a few calculations on whether this moment will still be suspended in the air by the time it takes to go grab my camera from the other room!
Masterpiece, your divine new book, is out in July! After the success of your first book, Disco Ball Soul (2017), how did this new project come about? Love the title.
Thank you! I was approached late last year by a local publisher, Tired Eyes Publishing here in Los Angeles to make a book. Kevin the owner left it very open ended and asked if there was anything I wanted to do. I had been thinking about a book of self-portraits for awhile, and so I suggested it to him. He liked the idea and we had a lot of fun compiling the selections for the book. It was incredible to see them all in one place, seeing my face and body and surroundings change. I can remember the situation in each photograph so vividly, it is a reminder of all the changes in my life. The title I find funny, but also poignant. Why not call it a Masterpiece when it comes to your own body? I’m sure many people would call it conceited but that’s part of what makes it so funny and tender. To me at least…
Over the past couple of weeks you’ve been sharing some unseen self-portraits on your Instagram from Copenhagen to Paris. The captions were really personal and beautiful. What are some highlights from the book?
Those self-portraits I took when I was very young. Putting some of the outtakes on Instagram and telling the story of their origin made me think about their context. In them I am always alone, which has been a theme in my life as an only child. I have enjoyed being alone and immersing myself in a private, secret world. Looking back as an adult to this time in my life as a 17, 18, 19 year old girl; going to Paris alone, going up the Eiffel Tower or ringing the doorbell at Shakespeare and Co., driving into the mountains alone to stand in a meditation labyrinth built by Vedanta nuns, I think…What was I doing? Why did I do that? I’ve become a bit of a mystery to myself now, which is an interesting feeling.
You’ve spoken before about photography being a way of life and a way to discover yourself- because you never really knew what you looked like. What photograph feels most like you? Do you feel seen by yourself now?
What an interesting question. I suppose the cover image, because it is one of the most exposed images of myself. Not just because I’m nude, because the book is mostly nudes, but rather because it is a photograph that at the time I discarded. When it came back from the lab I thought, “oh no I don’t look very good in that” and set it aside. It’s not necessarily that I am always seeking to look good in a photo, but my initial reaction used to be a sort of “oh my, no I can’t show this to anyone.” But now when I look back at most of the self-portraits I condemned to the “do not use” pile, I am surprised. I look beautiful in most of them, or rather just like myself, just as I should look for who I am and where I am in each photo. So I guess that’s a long way of saying that all of them work in this way, and they did all along, it was just me that needed to catch up and accept myself. I don’t think this is an uncommon feeling for women.
There’s a real intimacy to your work, and that intimacy enables a different kind of authenticity. Does being so open with your life and love have a downside?
Oh yes. Generally I feel very overexposed by the amount of intimacy I have shown to the world, and because of this feeling I’ve wholly retreated from documenting my life publicly. This book serves as a farewell of sorts to that life, as a compilation of everything up to this point; all the raw, visceral, blistering exposure. I still take personal photos, and maybe someday, somehow, I will do something with them, but for now they will remain locked in a vault. I’ve moved on to being much more interested in landscapes and interiors. It’s a different way of looking at intimacy; to examine the way a landscape is shaped by the world around it, or an interior speaks to the substance of a life lived within it. This is a new frontier for me, and it’s very exciting.
Let’s talk music! What are you listening to at the moment?
Tinariwen, The Waterboys, Bob Marley, John Frusciante… And my husband’s new unreleased record…
Since meeting your husband Josh (the American musician Father John Misty) you’ve said you’re inseparable. The love you have for one another is really inspiring because to me love is most important – lead with love/ all you need is love/love will tear us apart again. The way you feel about him really comes out through your 35mm film. How does having that magical relationship shape who you are and what you do?
In every way, in everything I do. I feel very fortunate.
Shooting and starring in his music videos and appearing in lyrics throughout his records – you’re just as present in Josh’s work as he is in yours. What are your thoughts about the idea of ‘the muse’?
Our connotations of the muse have morphed and changed so much over time. For a long time being called “the muse” relegated women to a sort of silent place, where their will and influence was seen only as a piece of the world the men who wrote about them inhabited. Of course we know that this is not true, and that nearly all the time the relationship is a two way street, only existing because of an interaction, not a solitary contemplation on the part of the artist. When I see how women like Yoko Ono shattered that notion, I feel liberation, to inhabit this two-sided definition of the muse, I don’t need to be burdened by what we might have thought about the word and its connotations in the past.
Let’s talk about your heavenly collaborations with Lana Del Rey please! Your own images of Lana and her sister Chuck, and the Norman (Fucking Rockwell, Del Rey’s 2019 record) alternative vinyl ladies of the canyon cover are all so iconic. Could you tell me a bit more about that friendship and if we can expect more in the future?
I love Lana and Chuck, they are the two of the most kind women you could meet and very loyal friends. I would be honoured to collaborate with both of them again.
I heard you started off wanting to be a writer. Do you journal often? What’s your writing process like?
I am still a writer. I write the original scripts for my films, some which have been made, some which haven’t. I started out wanting to be a novelist and would still like to write a book. We’ll see if I can manage it this lifetime, haha. I used to write in a journal every day, in the same kind of notebook, with a certain kind of pen, a very obsessive kind of thing. I have stacks and stacks of these journals in my office. I haven’t had the time to write in a journal in the last couple of years but I would like to return to it someday.
As for the writing process, when I write something good, I always feel as if I’ve channelled it and at the end I sort of wake up and am surprised it was me who wrote the words. That’s a great feeling, understanding the power of the universe moving through you.
‘There is another world, but it is inside this one.’ This quote from Paul Eluard appears on the ‘About’ page on your website – why are those words important to you?
What I take it to mean is: Look around you, it is all there if you have the eyes to see it.
Creating other worlds is evident in your short film work with The History of Caves (2013) and The Wheel (2018). Do you hope to direct more, or even produce a feature film? What does the future hold for you?
Yes, I do. I have a few feature length scripts written, a few ideas for some unwritten, and a book of short stories half written about the bizarre tales of Laurel Canyon. The future remains unknown, mostly I’d like to try living in the country.
And last but not least, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given or heard? Photo related or not.
It’s a piece of advice I gave myself, and it goes like this, “Convenience is the enemy of mankind.” Essentially, if you can do it the hard way, do it the hard way.
Words – Lo Harley
