Soul Sucking and Prostitution

My brain has been slathered with the realization that I will be scraping, clawing, screaming and grasping for satisfaction for the remainder of my life.
Satisfaction in creation, taste, environment, reaction, work and vision.

As I shun any type of job within the realm of volatile food service and cringe at the idea of selling retail items to fat men who try to coax me out for a steak after work- again- I decided to take a risk, put myself out there, try for a "dare to be great" situation. Apparently my notion of a "dare to be great situation" is, in reality, a "pearls before swine" situation in disguise.

The particular photography studio I set my sights on was, really, the only studio in the Worcester area I could even consider sending my resume to. I'm not desperate enough to set up an interview with a man who works out of his home and may very well be more interested in taking advantage of me in his shag carpeted spare-room studio than talking about my skills with a snoot.

I should have known it was a terrible mistake as soon as I walked in for my interview and saw six of the same lame family portrait hung around the walls displaying various styles of finish. My interviewer spared no opportunity to proclaim her expertise in the area of photography spouting several choice phrases such as "I been makin pictures since I'm twelve". I really hope I didn't flinch too much at that one.

After mentioning she had viewed my online portfolio I, foolishly, waited with baited breath to hear her thoughts. "I took a look at your online portfolio. Your work is. (Pause) Interesting. It's not what we do here. But You'll Learn OUR Ways." I immediately felt as if I were perched in an appropriately uncomfortable chair at the bargaining table to sell my soul. Learn your ways? As she explained, their "way" was focusing more on the experience of the client rather than the quality of the end portrait. Apparently, as long as the client has a good time having their portrait taken it doesn't really matter what it looks like, they'll like it anyways. Apparently I have to be extraordinarily extroverted, entertaining and be driven with a desire to take only long-sleeved upper-waist up portraits to be successful. I can't wait!

Besides that, after I informed her not only through my cover letter and resume but also on the phone that my work was displayed on an online portfolio she insisted on seeing hardcopies of my work. The entire point of an online portfolio is so I don't have to have hardcopies of my digitals. I'm a college student. Without a job, obviously. I don't have the cash to shell out to print out all of my digitals. HELLO.

All in all, the interview was a fiasco made worse only by my previous thinking that it would be brilliant. I wanted to bang my head against the fingerprint strewn table and rip the Ansel Adams print from the wall of their messy conference room. i could feel my soul being sucked from my body especially when she blatantly stated "I like you for sales, I like your cover letter, it shows you can think and do". What the fuck does that mean? Anyone who can walk can think and do.

Basically I'm torn between being horribly offended and incredibly relieved that she referred to my work in such an unenthusiastic way. Clearly, she's an idiot who is giving herself much more credit than she deserves. If she's such a great photographer what is she doing taking senior portraits at 2008's version of Olan Mills? That's the question of the week. I'd really rather continue in my current fashion than learn "their ways". "Their ways" are ominious and sound suspiciously like an attempt to strip me of any creativity I've ever enjoyed. It sounds like a plot to turn me into a commercial photographer who needs little more than a point and shoot. The one silver lining is when she offered, "People complain about our prices all the time, 100 bucks for an 8x10, but that's what it costs for talent. Right now, you should be selling your work for about half that" which, judging from the rest of the interview, can really only be taken as a compliment.

I'm still waiting to hear if I'm being offered the job. (Oh Boy!) How I wish I weren't broke and desperate for money. Some people sell their bodies to make money. Other people sell their souls. Really, which is worse?

By process of elimination I've decided that THIS might be one of the offending "interesting" photographs which does not mesh with "their ways".




















photograph by Jessica Cyr 2008- all rights reserved

After careful consideration I've come to a conclusion: Fuck Their Ways.

key conversations

one




















two

photographs by Jessica Cyr- all rights reserved

what not who

photograph by Jessica Cyr- all rights reserved

I am the daughter.
I am the daughter,
the remnant,
the raw husk
from
the previous,
abusive
marriage.

I am the hollow body,
the shape you molded
to pour yourself into,
by teaspoon and pinch.
I am the receptacle
as you twist my arm
mixing the ingredients,
manipulation
folding into pockets of guilt
as you crank.

I am the little girl
absorbing your anger,
gathering your whispers
and cupboard conversations,
swallowing the slight "he"s
and unspeakable wrongs.
The story of my baby breath
is strangled behind dull voices
and forced
between the folds of my brain.
Like chasing the shadows
of a nightlong dream around
while the morning sun bursts through,
scattering truth into oblivion
just as your fingers graze its solid form.

I am the child
built on broken lives.
They warn "you never know
what life will bring".
As the words twist in the air
and transform into dire scorn:
never grow into comfort,
never believe in good,
never trust it will work,
never be foolish enough
to think the first
will be the last.
Feet fighting the floor,
gathering around
eyes aglow on my life
looping before me
while they unite mine with theirs
they predict pain.

Collecting these cupfuls,
watch them quiver at the rim,
turning to glass as they slip
spreading across the floor,
mines as reminders
as blood beads from my toes.
Boxes overflowing with
items
too insignificant to want
and truths
too damaging to know,
baby teeth in a tiny,
plastic treasure chest
yellowing brown;
this is what I am.

Jessica Cyr © 2008

biological misfirings

photograph by Jessica Cyr- all rights reserved

When you die
the world will be entirely
the same
as when you drew breath
and walked,
spoke and existed
on another plane
unable to traverse
onto mine.

I consider the machines
shifting past me,
collections of metal and rubber,
soft masquerading as hard.
Pistons firing
making love to cylinders
with no regret
metal against metal
grinding away between layers
of sticky oil.
Inefficient machines with their
frantically moving parts
masking the rumbling beneath
accepting our trust
while we anticipate their failure.

I wonder at you
and your inefficient machine.
Faulty valves and double helix's
which I snatched
and tote
around.
I ascribe to you
this infrequent heart sting,
my inability to ingest
seemingly innocuous foods
and irritability
in all its varied forms.
All I hate within
this broken
healing
strangled
resilient
battered
persistent body
must have leaked
from you
unbeknownst
or out of spite.

Somewhere in this night
you sit.
Somewhere in the day
you eat and sweat,
you piss and fuck
and from afar
in some unknown room
in some unseen place
where you lay in wait
you gave me fear.
"Run" she said,
if you ever see him
"run".

And if you suffer
a misstep
and are run down,
if you lay in a pink floral
hospital room
oxygen flowing through plastic
into your lungs
if your inefficient machine
is taken over by a hostile force
and you crumble into yourself
will anyone tell me?
When you die my life
will continue as it has
with you living in a cramped,
dim room in my head.
But when you die,
would I want to know?


Jessica Cyr © 2008

unconcious energy

untitled print one



















untitled print two




















untitled print three


photographs by Jessica Cyr- all rights reserved

fightlightnight

photograph by Jessica Cyr- all rights reserved

Last night my chest emptied,
hollowed out, barren and echoed.
My heart thrashing within its empty cavern,
wiggling between my ribs,
my sternum taking the abuse
while I pressed my fingers
through my brazen bones
breathing with its frantic dance
as I made contact with this unseen creature
keeping me alive,
keeping me awake,
as I waited for this beast to burst,
squeezing through its cage and seeping through my skin
to fly through the dense air
and tango across the gritty floor.

My skin reacts with Yours
as my casual arms smooth over the rumpled sheets,
sliding by Your bare skin
where You lay beside me
long and smooth like a white fish
illusive as You gleam in the moonlight
hovering just above the sandy floor
beneath the rippling of a midnight blue stream
sleek, slick and soft, the light glistening off Your scales,
the light glistening off Your elbows, ears, eyelashes like sparks,
diffuse as I dim the light with precise hesitation
watching Your features soften until the night emerges,
filling the room.

You breathe beside me as the creature
horns its way through my insides,
my thoughts ignite
but my eyelids are failing me
and the words are becoming far too connected
and the day I'm pulling behind me is far too heavy.
I can feel the beast through my ear
pressing down into the pillow
and its time to leave here
and let the words fall together
on their own
while my breath joins Yours.
















photograph by Jessica Cyr- all rights reserved


Jessica Cyr © 2007

art speech

Maybe there will be a day when art is the only thing that can save us. Or a day when people realize it's been happening all along. I want to be involved in this movement, I want to create art that matters.