Letter requesting participants: "I am an artist who is composing a book compiling stories of lesbian identity. The purpose of this piece is to tell your own story, and have it be heard by members of your own community as well as to see the stories of others in your community. The piece begins by you selecting five photographs from your past (any age from 0 to no more than six months ago) that you feel best identify you at that time. You will then meet with me at a location of your choice where we will discuss your chosen photographs. Your photos and comments will appear together in a book along with the other participants. (I will also be participating in the project so be assured that any questions I ask of you I will ask of myself!) The piece is completed once it has been distributed to all the participants."

So, yeah. There's a page about me in here too. That kinda goes towards my thoughts on... artist involvement. I'm really a lot of times just as interested in the artist as I am in the artist's work. And I think it's a real hole in art where you don't know much about where the artist is coming from or who they are. Like, when you look at these people I'm interviewing, you aren't seeing these people... you're seeing them through my questions. So in order to get a more full on perspective, you need to know me too. I also think it's important to put myself through what I'm putting them through if you know what I mean. Like I'm making up this experience, I should find out what it's like to be on both ends.

When I was going over this, pre-testing questions, I had a whole bunch of questions that were pointedly, specifically about sexuality, and about your thoughts about, um, whether you liked being gay, whether you ever wanted to be straight, like just very outright. Um, and I realized that although I was talking to lesbians I didn't necessarily want it to be about lesbians. I'm not as concerned about... um, feelings related specifically to the subject of lesbians, and I think that if the individual that I'm talking to is, then it will come up. And especially since I'm allowing people to ask whatever questions they want in the end of the interview. When I was talking to Ashley, uh, she went on at length about how... when I asked her what else she wanted to talk about, that was like half the interview. And she wanted to talk about high school, and how she thought the people were really cruel and she just didn't understand how that could happen. Which was odd cause then she went on to tell me that she'd been harassed all through public school as well... er, grade school. Um, but yeah, and she really wanted to talk about that aspect. So, um, I don't know. I found, I found that the questions just didn't resonate with me that was really relative to being lesbian.

In this? What's my purpose? Um. My tag line is um, ha ha ha, I wish I had it written down, um, it's basically that... there's so many things. First of all I want people to be able to see themselves. And to really, to really think about who they are, if they haven't already, and in most cases people definitely have. So, in those cases it gives people a chance to voice themselves. Um, and in addition to being able to explain themselves; not have someone else explain themselves. And I think that happens so much in society at large, and just... like, right up to and including online dating services that have drop down boxes describing yourself - and that's not life. So, and that's another reason why I made my questions so incredibly vague, because I wanted the participants to make their own boxes, basically.

The final statements in all... in each person's profile is their description of the large photo. The large photo is the photo they've chosen as best representing themselves.

Personally Identified, the Process

Compared to my other friends, my life story is identity, and i'm just beginning to realize that this is ok. That it's ok to be so engrossed in who you are. Cause if you force yourself out of it... if you force yourself out of anything, um, you end up loosing... you end up not learning what you needed to learn, you know? There's a reason why you question things. It's not about egotism, it's about... finding out what your body's trying to tell you. And sometimes it's more difficult, or it takes longer, but whatever it is that's got your interest, it's ok. And for me, my interest is, and has been me. I've wanted to know who I am. Who Tori is. And now that I'm doing this piece, I'm realizing that I want to know about ‘the Other'. It's, like, the ideal indication that I'm moving away from the intrigue in the Self, and I wanna know about other people. And I love that. I truly do. Because it feels natural. In the true sense of it. This isn't forced. This is me, being truly interested, in you. I couldn't have done this without having given myself all (or a hell of a lot) of my attention first.

I found it interesting talking to Vanessa cause she didn't seem to have, um, a lot to say about personality, feelings, identity in the sense of.... more theoretical issues if you will. All her stuff was about moments, events and... yeah. Like when I asked her why she didn't have photos from her teenage years her reason was totally utilitarian - "I don't have a camera... there's also a picture album that I chose not to remove because the whole shelf would come tumbling down." Ha ha ha, I loved that. It was so different than everyone else I'd spoken to. I mean, for me personally, I've chosen and re-chosen and analysed my choices so much! Each one is like a... what do you call it? An icon - an icon for me. They're all incredibly significant to me. With Vanessa I got the sense that her photos could have been pretty interchangeable. It was about the moment more than the person.

Tori - "Is that something that's accurate, that you would think of like... when I was six I did this, instead of when I was six I was this?" Vanessa - "Yeah, I think that is accurate."

Ha ha ha. I was showing a friend of mine this project and telling her how much I liked that you could just pick out any paragraph and get something from it.... you didn't have to read the whole thing. And she's like "that's very representative of you". Completely. My mind isn't linear at all. I can see why this format appeals to me. I also think that it's very unique to the human... um, what's the word? Well, it's really descriptive of people. Like, you can read one paragraph, or have one conversation, and you'll see them in one light, add another few conversations, or paragraphs, and the person's profile, or identity... kind of grows, you know? you have more than one perspective all of a sudden.

My interview with Jaye was really, um... interesting. Actually, I think that a lot of the conversation we had after was what will stick in my head too... I wish I'd had my tape rolling for that part as well. It was so... what? It was like, I don't know. I just liked how there were no real boxes for her life. Which really was what this project was all about. I wanted to be able to see and have people describe themselves without boxes. She was talking about how she didn't really identify with either gender and it took me a while to get my head around it. But once I did it was like... I don't know, a light was shining in a part of my mind that had been so dark before.

Of all the participants... I think there were five of the six of us who had a huge gap missing in the chronology of our lives. This gap that resides pretty much in adolescence and none of us really wanted it included in the project for varying reasons... mostly because it just didn't ... um, what am I trying to say? It just wasn't a period we identified with. It was as though we strayed from the true selves that we were as children and have been trying to find our way back to it ever since.