Letting In a Little Light

Jaina Cipriano

Interview by L. Valena

Can you tell me what you responded to?

The piece I responded to was called Your Eye Needs to See All This. I'm not sure if it would be considered a short essay or a poem, but it was wonderful and very visual and visceral. I had a lot to work with.

What was your first reaction to it?

It reminded me a lot of how I write things, which I think was really cool and interesting. I don't see stuff like that very often, and I was surprising that I would get something like that. I feel like it's such a gamble- you really don't know what you're going to get. I really wondered if it was going to be something that I could vibe with. And it was. It was so rooted in real things- David Bowie, and Flintstones Chewable Vitamins, and things like that. I really like words and writing that feel really concrete.

What happened next?

I just tried to mostly internalize it. I felt like this piece wasn't super literal- I didn't want to take anything directly from it and create a visual. But as I went through it, the thing that stuck out to me was eyes and seeing. This feeling of being encapsulated inside of something. So I wanted to kind of run with that, and go somewhere that was authentic to me too. Try to combine where I'm at (my process and emotions), and with where it seems like this person was at.

I had this idea pop up that week- I was just thinking a lot about feathers. It was after I had read this piece, and I just felt like the two things... well, at first I felt like they weren't connected, and that I should try harder and read the piece harder. And then I thought that maybe I shouldn't put so much pressure on it- if I felt something after I read it, that I should just go with it.

Right. You don't need to put Flintstones Chewable Vitamins in your piece! What was it about feathers that were calling to you? If you have words for it.

I think it was independent of this piece- it just kind of came to me. I've been playing a lot with substances, and covering my body with different things. I was doing sprinkles, and shaving cream, earlier. So it was kind of in that vein with things.

I took a little break from art-making when the pandemic started, and when I restarted everything just felt so heavy. Every day I was pulling myself out from underneath these really heavy feelings, just to make something. And I feel like I did that enough, that things feel a little bit lighter now. Not really in the world, but at least inside me. So maybe that's why I thought of feathers. They're so much lighter than being covered in sticky shaving cream.

Right- they're a little clingy, but you can brush them off. I like the idea of thinking about feathers in terms of feelings. Maybe we can brush them off sometimes.

It was definitely much easier to clean myself after that shoot, but more difficult to clean my space than usual. You win some, you lose some.

Where did the feathers come from?

I just bought them online. Way more than I needed. I figured five pounds of feathers would be enough. It's like way more than one could ever need.

How big is five pounds of feathers?

The bag was only this big, but they were packed. It was very heavy. I wish I could show you, but it's locked away somewhere in my studio- somewhere where it can't cause any more trouble.

Do you think there's a machine that makes a brick of feathers? How does that happen? How does the transition from this unwieldy explosion to this concrete little package happen?

When I was cleaning them up, I would shove them back in and they would just like fly back out. I was wondering what the factory looked like.

Maybe we need to do a little reconnaissance mission and interview the people who work at the feather-packing factory.

They're probably stressed and miserable. I've had factory jobs- it's messy. It's always messier than you think it is. Everything is everywhere, so I can't imagine that the feather factory is not super messy and stressful.

I do think that when people think of factories, they think of clean machinery, with mostly robots doing the work. There's just so much invisible labor happening there.

Oh yeah- it's mostly people doing stuff in factories- poor, underpaid, overworked people.

Now that this piece is done, when you look at it, what does it say to you?

It's hopeful to me, and kind of fun, which I did not really expect. That does not often come through in my self portraits, because when I'm happy I don't often find the need to express myself. Part of it was feeling connected to someone else through this process. I've become so collaborative in the way that I want to work, and that was something new for me as of January. So when the pandemic hit, this new thing that was kind of grounding and exciting was pulled out from under me. Being able to feel a little bit of that community and art connection was very uplifting for me. I feel like that really comes through in what I created.

That's awesome. And I like that you pulled that kind of playfulness from this. I think most of us who make stuff can get really serious about things. It's easy to get sucked into feeling really serious about our work, because it's fucking important. But I think that this is definitely a game- it's play time. It's possible to make work that's really serious within it, but it's also an invitation to just shake out of whatever you've been working on and try something else.

It definitely works like that. When I decided that this was the photo shoot I was going to do, I had this image in my mind. I wanted it to be just my eyes. I wanted it to be really close, and have it be just my eyes looking through feathers. And I kind of tried for that, but it's a lot harder to navigate space with feathers all over you. It was difficult and a little more overwhelming than I thought it would be. But also, I feel like when you start working with another medium, it just has a mind of its own, and you just kind of go with it. If you fight it too much, you can lose the flow of what you're making. When I felt like that wasn't really working, I just kind of let the feathers go and went with them. So this was not what I anticipated making, even once I had decided what I was going to make, but I like it. It's cool. It's good to let go, to do things and feel them connected to other things.

Call Number: M29PP | M30VA.ciLe

Jaina Cipriano is a photographer, production designer and filmmaker in Boston, MA. Focusing on creating work that speaks to the subconscious, her work can be seen at Shelter in Place Gallery and in the next issue of GRLSQUASH. Her first short film, You Don't Have to Take Orders From The Moon will debut online on October 31, 2020.