“There’s not one day that I don’t feel vulnerable…” Allié: As an artist, what is your favorite part of the process - developing the concept or capturing the content?
Christy: I love the whole process, but my favorite part is after the shoot when I’m looking at the images that were captured. Developing the concept can be painful in some ways, until that last moment when it all comes together. Shooting is also exhilarating, when everything is working out. But it’s like a marathon shooting with water; I’m problem solving the whole way. And then I sleep for days once it’s complete.
Allié: My favorite quote of yours is this: “Through our deepest vulnerabilities we somehow find our most profound strengths.” Can you share a personal vulnerability of your own and the strength you found there?
Christy: Actually, the start of my art career began as one of my most vulnerable points. During the 2008 market crash I lost absolutely everything. I was without a place to live, not one cent to my name, huge debt, loss of a massive project I had worked on for over 3 years, my relationship, and loss of my own dignity and hope. It all happened so fast and I probably cried for a week straight. That led to me fainting, falling and hitting my head, and cracking my eye open. I wound up in the emergency room and with huge doctor bills that I could not pay. There’s a point where you think “I’m going to die”, and then you don’t. So I went back to Hawaii and stayed with my family. And that’s when I became a true artist. I had nothing left to lose. I locked myself away and created like mad… I wrote, read, studied, bettered myself and then shot my Odyssey collection. I’d sell a print for $300 to a friend, take $100 of it to rent the best camera and the rest would go to barely pay a few bills. But I felt alive. And it was the freest I ever felt, even to this day. That’s when I decided on this concept of hope through vulnerability, because I lived it and I knew that other people did as well. There’s not one day that I don’t feel vulnerable, but that’s what life is after all. We’re vulnerable to death, our bodies, viruses, relationships, everything; but how we respond to it is what’s makes us great. ∎
Transcending mediums and mechanics,
the work of Christy Lee Rogers
is not only meant to be seen but felt.
Steeped in human empathy,
her photography is not simply a collection of photos, it’s an anthology of emotion
that defines our very humanity.
Allié McGuire
Co-Founder of Awareness Ties
Learn more about Christy Lee Rogers and her work by visiting her website: www.christyleerogers.com
Follow her on Instagram: @christyleerogers
11 AWARENOW / THE MAYDAY EDITION
www.IamAwareNow.com