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For the past few months, one of my favorite things on Instagram has been Maggie West’s gorgeous nude photo series for Amber Rose’s Slut Walk. The colors, the confidence, the variety of bodies. So, of course, I had to invite her on because her massive stained glass installation is available today in Los Angeles for Slut Walk.
We talk about art, nudity, her body fluids series which jump started her relationship with Christopher Zeischegg (who was on a few weeks ago).
Plus, I field a listener question all about being in love with your current girlfriend, but still being a little obsessed with an ex. Is it OK to check up on exes on Facebook, even if you’ve moved on?
Here we go!
Follow Dawn is on Instagram.
In this episode, Maggie and I talk about:
- How Maggie got involved with Slut Walk for a photo project of women’s bodies and women owning their sexuality.
- Why diverse casting was so important to Maggie’s project – including fat bodies, Black bodies, and trans bodies.
- Every 98 seconds someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted, so that’s why Maggie named this new Slut Walk project, “98.”
- What it means to build consent into a photo project and helping models feel comfortable when the pictures are about their bodies and sexuality.
- Nudity and how comfortable Maggie is in situations where she’s photographing naked bodies and models who are in various states of undress.
- Maggie’s weirdest experience on her most recent project, which involved getting naked herself.
- How do you walk that line between erotic and overtly sexual? Maggie has some thoughts that I adore.
- Abstract lighting and art and how that changes the ways we see things like gender, naked bodies, and kissing.
- Why capturing sex or filming porn is not at all interesting to Maggie.
- Sex workers and the crappy stigma that blacklists them from other jobs. Maggie loves working with sex workers, but can never hire them for her mainstream work with larger companies.
- What makes for a great nude or boudoir picture. After capturing so many naked bodies, Maggie says it really comes down to one thing.
- Maggie’s project, Fluids, that she did with Christopher Zeischegg and why she wanted to capture sexual fluids.
- Maggie’s tips for budding erotic photographers and film makers.
Resources from this episode
Check out Maggie’s Instagram to see some of her amazing work for Slut Walk’s 98.
About Maggie West
Maggie West is a Los Angeles based artist specializing in experimental lighting and installation techniques. Her surreal, colorful photographs have been featured in acclaimed publications and sources worldwide.
You can check out Maggie’s work and stay in touch on Instagram and Twitter @maggiewest.
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!
Hey, you. Here we are with a new episode of Sex Gets Real. This week and chatting all about art and nude bodies with Maggie West, who’s a phenomenal photographer that’s actually doing the art installation for Amber Rose’s Slut Walk. So if you’re in the Los Angeles area, and you’re listening to this on October 1, you can grab free tickets to see Maggie’s stunning stained glass installation of all these gorgeous nude female bodies including trans bodies and fat bodies with the coupon code: Thank you Reebok. Also, after Maggie and I chat all about art and bodies and some wonderful, wonderful stuff with Christopher Zeischegg, who’s her partner. I also have a listener question that’s all about getting over an ex and Facebook stalking them even when you’re in a new relationship with someone that you totally care about. Many of us have been there. So stay tuned for the listener question.
Dawn Serra: I just want to remind you, there’s new rewards on Patreon for the show. I’ve already posted a couple of listener questions for you to weigh in on and share your advice. Depending on what level you pledge at, please check it out: patreon.com/sgrpodcast. I would love to see you over there participating, having fun. Now, let me jump into Maggie’s bio and then you can hear the two of us talking all about art and then a juicy listener question.
Maggie West is a Los Angeles based artist specializing in experimental lighting and installation techniques. Her surreal colorful photographs have been featured in acclaimed publications and sources worldwide. We also talked about her two books Kiss and 23, plus a little project that she did involving bodily fluids. So I hope you enjoy this talk all about art and then into a listener question.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Maggie. I am very much looking forward to talking to you today about art and photography and bodies. So welcome.
Maggie West: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy we could do this.
Dawn Serra: So the reason that I reached out to you was I have been obsessed with the pictures that you have been putting on Instagram over the past couple of weeks, which is leading up to an installation that’s happening for Amber Rose’s a Slut Walk. I would love it if we could start there because the images are frickin captivating and gorgeous and surreal. I just want to know all the things. So can you tell the listeners a little bit about the project?
Maggie West: Yeah, yeah, I’d love to. So the way that this got started was I saw that Slut Walk posting – I think they posted on Instagram or something like wanting to work with artists for the upcoming Slut Walk. And I just felt like my work very much aligned with their cause. For listeners that aren’t familiar with Slut Walk. It’s a nationwide thing, but here in LA it’s a big festival put on by Amber Rose. The women basically gathered together and put on slutty outfits and march through the streets as an effort to reclaim the word “slut”, and basically own our sexuality and be like “I can basically walk around naked and it’s still not okay to be harassed or assaulted or whatever.” And owning one’s own sexuality, which is very in line with a lot of our projects that I’ve done.
So anyway, I talked to them and I was basically like, “Would you guys be open to doing a large scale installation?” So I pitched this concept where what I would do is take photos of a bunch of very diverse women. A lot of my photography is very colorful so what I wanted to do was cut the photos together into what would look like a stained glass ceiling. The concept for that came from – I was doing some research in stained glass and who is traditionally depicted in glass and it’s primarily saints, which makes sense because it’s primarily in the Catholic churches and stuff like that. But it was really interesting doing the research I was like, “All right, let’s look into female saints.” Not every single one, but I feel like I can safely say – 95% of female saints are actually virgins. You can look at all these stories and most of these stories have to do with these women enduring horrible torture or being played or torn apart in the limbs or whatever. They would rather have these violent, horrible deaths than give up their virginity.
Maggie West: So I just thought of using a similar method but turning the message on its head and juxtaposing that with the message of Slut Walk, which is like, women reclaiming the word slut and expressing themselves sexually. I just wanted to use a visual medium, but juxtapose, who were actually depicting and what the message is.
Dawn Serra: One of the things that I love so much about it, too, is you have black bodies, you have trans bodies, you have sex workers. You have at least one fat body. So there’s kind of this wonderful diversity of gender, sexuality, bodies. To me, I think that’s so in the spirit of Slut Walk. But it also makes for this really rich, beautiful landscape that I’ve been seeing you build in the images that you’re sharing. So I’m sure the completed piece is just going to be mind blowing. I love all the different types of bodies and stories that you folded into this.
Maggie West: Thank you. To me diversity… I mean, I feel in general, my casting is pretty diverse and most of my art projects. But for this particular project, diversity was the really important part of this for me. Because I feel like the issues that flow addresses harassment and violence and discrimination based on sexuality is something that most women have experienced in their life, regardless of whether it’s their background or ethnicity or sexual orientation. I feel like these issues affect all women. So I wanted to reflect that in the casting, you know?
Dawn Serra: So I know that the installation, and totally correct me if I’m using the wrong terminology because I am so outside of the art world, but I know that the name of the installation is 98. Can you tell us a little bit about that name?
Maggie West: So, the title 98 is actually based on a Department of Justice statistic that says that every 90 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. Granted, that isn’t just women at all – that’s men and people in prison and children, and whatever. But to me that statistic was so insane that I wanted to reference that in the work. I think it’s, in some ways, it’s interesting to me to be looking at this beautiful portraiture thing, and then give it this gruesome title.
There’s not 98 women in the install, there’s like 40 and I don’t remember how many pictures there are. I think there’s 120. But basically, you go through the install and in the time that it probably takes you to walk through the whole thing, someone has been sexually assaulted and that’s just crazy.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. One of the things that I saw that I thought was really interesting was that you really wanted the models to feel proud and comfortable of the pictures that were chosen. So you actually narrowed them down to the top 20, and then let the individual models pick their favorite three. I’d love to know– For me, that makes my sex educator heart sing because it has that really wonderful element of consent to it and wanting people to feel good about the ways they’re sharing their bodies with others, and having them consumed by others. What was it like for you to actually go through that process with them ,of seeing what they were drawn to or which ones they shied away from?
Maggie West: I mean, in general, I tried to make the sessions – the portrait sessions as comfortable for the models as possible. There is a really wide range of how naked people are in this. Some people wanted to be in the project and lend their voice to this, but they were uncomfortable being full on frontal nude which I totally get – that’s fine. So for those models, we cropped them at the shoulder and it’s more like a headshot. But then some models were all about getting everything in there. So we totally did that. I think from before we even got to selecting the images, there was a lot of, “What are you comfortable with?” talks that we had, which I think is important when you’re doing like portraiture in general. I want the models to like their portrait. I mean, I don’t always have the freedom to let them choose. For instance, my art book 23 that came out a few months ago, they didn’t choose all of their photos, I did. To my knowledge, they all like them or whatever, but sometimes they can choose and sometimes they can’t. But with this, because it is specifically a project for a political cause and these people are lending their voices and being like, “Look like I stand for this.” To me, it just made sense that they get to choose how they look in the install.
So whenever they would come to shoot, we would definitely have a conversation about like, “What are you comfortable with?” “What do you want to do?” Then from there, I would pick their top 20 and let them narrow it down to the top three. The only disadvantage that I have experienced with this is that certain poses are more flattering than others, which I get, everybody wants to look good. But I wish people had chosen less photos where they have their elbow over their arm or over their head – a very classic nude pose. I get it, it’s very flattering and it looks good, but also I have a lot of photos of that. For the most part, it was amazing.
Maggie West: The other thing is certain color choices are a little bit more flattering than others. I did notice that we had a strong leaning towards certain colors and stuff like that. So luckily, some of the models in the projects I’ve worked with a million times, and they’re very comfortable with me and we’re friends. So it was sometimes with those people I would go back and be like, “Hey, do you mind if I use a green one because I really need some more green in this.” Stuff like that. Every photo that’s used to install is one that they either directly picked out or saw and we’re like, “Yeah, that’s great. I’m down with that.”
Dawn Serra: For a lot of people, nudity is something that is shameful, or it’s something that’s reserved for very specific, super intimate situations. A lot of people feel ashamed to be naked. Then there’s a lot of other people who feel wildly comfortable without any clothes on and it might be because that’s their work. So it just feels very natural to them at this point or it might be because someone just really loves being naked. I’m wondering for you, as someone who is looking at these beautiful bodies that are naked and capturing them and documenting them – Is it always a comfortable thing for you at this point or are there still points in time where there’s something about someone or the context where you still get that little bit of nervousness or awkwardness that comes up when you’re in the situation of like, “Okay, now we’re going to do stuff and your naked.”?
Maggie West: Not for me personally, because I mean, at this point, I’ve done it so much that it doesn’t – someone being naked in front of me doesn’t really affect me very much. I don’t think, especially in the context of we’re doing a photo shoot where you’re getting naked. I do try and maintain sensitivity. Because I do know that even if somebody is, like with this project, even if somebody is down to get naked, it might be the first time that they’ve done that and they might be self conscious about how they look or whatever. So I try and maintain that a little bit. I actually shot myself for this project. I got asked a few months ago, I was actually in the Penthouse. They did a story on me and I was beginning to shoot for this, and so they asked me if I’d be willing to be naked for them. And I knew that I was about to shoot for this. I was like, “I’ll just do both.”
I’m not even good at selfies. I’m not one of those photographers who is super into taking photos of themselves. I do it sometimes like we all do, but I’m definitely a behind the camera person. So that was maybe one of the weirder experiences I’ve had with recently. When it’s somebody else and they’re nervous and super easy for me to be like, “Oh, it’s okay. Calm down.” or “Oh,it’s fine. If you’re not fully comfortable getting totally nude, it’s fine. We’ll just shoot you on the shoulder.” Whatever. But me doing and with myself, I was like, “Oh, well. I’m just going to have to get over this.” Because I felt really weird and hypocritical being like, “No, I couldn’t possibly get naked,” when I’ve asked so many people to get naked for me – that just seemed really silly, you know? So, overcoming my own weird issues with it was probably the most interesting thing I’ve dealt with with that recently.
Dawn Serra: I love that you’re like, “Okay, I literally asked hundreds of people to get naked so maybe I can.
Maggie West: Yeah, it really seems it would be – and it’s not like I think that every photographer that shoots sounds nudes has a moral obligation to do it themselves. They don’t. But for me personally, I was like, “Well, I’ve had some body issues throughout my life. I mean, fuck it, why not?” I should just go ahead and go for it. So I did. And it wasn’t as horrible and I thought it was going to be. At first I was like, “Oh my god, this is going to be awful.” I mean, technically, it was a little bit difficult because I was dumb and I forgot to rent a remote trigger.
Dawn Serra: Oh, no.
Maggie West: Yeah, because all of this happened last minute because basically Penthouse hit me up the week before I was going to start shooting for Slut Walk, so I didn’t have all the gear. I normally wouldn’t – whatever. But I had to do it on a remote timer, which was hilarious looking because – thank God, I was the only person here while this was going on.
Dawn Serra: Running back and forth?
Maggie West: Yeah, totally. Totally naked in my studio hitting a timer and then running over and twisting my body around in a flattering angle or whatever. It’s very silly looking.
Dawn Serra: I love that. Did you feel like after you finished it, it felt really good to look at the images and to see yourself captured that way?
Maggie West: Yeah, I mean, I think there was a little bit of that. I’m also a very technical photographer so for me, it’s like there was a little bit of that emotion. Like when I look at most photos, I’m like, “Oh, you need to edit this out or the lighting didn’t hit right.” I was honestly just so frustrated with not getting the lighting the way that I wanted to, because I wasn’t looking at the photo. I mean, I guess there was some of that but there was also some grumpy technical stuff.
Dawn Serra: I know in addition to 98, which is showing on October 1, is that right?
Maggie West: Yeah, yeah. The event is October 1.
Dawn Serra: Awesome. So the day that this episode comes out, so if anyone’s in LA, you’re going to hear about it.
Maggie West: Yeah. If you go to the Flintlock website, which I don’t know off the top of my head, but if you Google it, there’s a link to get tickets. You do have to get tickets to go in. However, the tickets are free if you use the coupon code: “Thank you Reebok”. So everybody can get tickets for free, but you do have to have tickets to come in and see everything.
Dawn Serra: In addition to 98, which is all about women and really celebrating their bodies and their sexuality without shame, and without that very traumatic, painful, tortured virgin story. You also have two books. One is Kiss, which is 20 pairs of folks kissing with your beautiful lighting and then you have 23, which is a series of nudes. I spied James Darling in the mix and, of course, Chris. I don’t know. Something about the images that I was able to see on your website, there’s so much intimacy that comes through especially in the kissing ones. There’s something about the images that just feel very personal. I’m wondering for you, what is the line when you’re capturing images with human being subjects who are either doing something very personal or sharing themselves in a very vulnerable way, how do you walk that line between erotic and overtly sexual?
Maggie West: I guess maybe some of it is intent like the difference between– because I’ve gotten a lot of people – I’ve been asked to shoot porn a couple times and I don’t actually shoot porn. Even though I use a ton of sex workers and porn performers in my work all the time. To me the difference between what I do and a lot of straight pornography or gay pornography, you know what I mean – just actual pornography is intent. I might shoot a sexual image, with either the nudes or the kissing or whatever, but I’m not intending – the intent for me is not for someone to get off to it. You know what I mean? It’s like I’m trying to say something else with the work, so I guess that’s the difference between. I’m not shooting, whatever I’m shooting, just to be sexually provocative. Does that make sense? So I guess for me if there is a line, that’s it, maybe.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, that makes sense. So it sounds like what you want to capture is more about being present and bodies or actions, and the intention behind it is really the art and the vulnerability rather…
Maggie West: Yeah, I mean, I think– Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
Dawn Serra: Oh no, go for it.
Maggie West: I think, to me, a lot of my work is about capturing genuine emotions in an artificial environment. I think that’s actually – that’s one of the main reasons that I use the gels is besides the fact that I just visually like how it looks. I think that when you recolor something that we’re all used to seeing in a normal regular, traditional lighting, it kind of abstracts it and makes it – gives you a new perspective on it. For instance with Kiss, we’ve all seen people kissing a million times like you see in movies, you see in TV, you see in life. But for me, with using these colors to abstract everything a little bit, it gives the viewer a little bit of a new perspective on it. And you can kind of look at it in a more abstract way and be like “Oh, wow. Kissing from a very abstract perspective is actually really weird.” We smash our mouths together in order to communicate affection or be sexually aroused or whatever. So to me, the color use is interesting.
The same thing for 23. I meant as kind of an examination of the entire spectrum of gender and sexuality. But, to me, what was really interesting is because of the lighting and how the lighting kind of abstracts things sometimes, I kind of as an experiment, I gave the book to some of my friends or relatives that are not super familiar with what a trans person looks like or something like that or even non super binary heterosexual people or queer people, whatever. People that don’t have super traditional standards. And what was funny to me is that they couldn’t tell who was trans and who wasn’t. I felt like the lighting, because it abstracted everything, it just made it look like these are people. It obscures the differences, which is kind of what I was going for. Especially with 23, I feel like there’s been so many books that were nude photo books, but were just super adhering to a binary of this is what masculine is feminine is. I guess I like to use the colors to kind of abstract things and make everything a little bit more muddled and less clear, you know?
Dawn Serra: So I know you’ve said that you’ve been invited to shoot porn a couple of times, and I’m wondering, either 1.) Is that something you’re interested in doing at any point? 2.) Would you ever do a photo series of sex or of bodies being sexual together, even if it’s not for the purpose of pornography, it’s more for this purpose of humanity and emotion and connection and you’re capturing it in the beautiful way that you do but like bodies actually coming together? What’s that prospect like for you?
Maggie West: To me, I gotta be honest, it’s not super interesting. I don’t, at this time, I’m not really particularly interested in shooting sex – straight up regular sex. I mean, there’s a lot of people who have photographed it beautifully and I’m sure it could be beautifully done. But to me, for instance, especially – One of the most interesting parts for me of seeing people kissing was the facial expressions and the lack of awareness and vulnerability with that. I mean, I’m sure you can get some about during sex, too, but I don’t know. I’m not really that interested in it, to be honest.
In terms of shooting porn, I don’t know, there’s a lot of people doing it. They seem very happy doing it for me. I don’t know. Commercially, it really doesn’t make sense for me and artistically, I kind of feel like I’m doing– I don’t know. I’m happy with what I’m doing and I really don’t feel the need to do that, you know? I do, however, really like using porn performers in my work. I feel like a lot of times, performers are often blacklisted from a lot of other modeling. To me, that seems ridiculous. I shoot commercial work all the time. Commercially, I actually shoot cosmetic ads. It’s like how I make most of my money. It’s really funny to me when I’m casting and they’ll be like, “Oh, we need a blonde model or this proportions or whatever,” and I’ll know a million people that would be great for that. But I can’t use them, because they’ve been in porn and I know that whatever commercial company I’m working for, they’re going to freak out when they find out about that. So, for me, I don’t think that people should be discriminated against because they’ve taken place in sex work or even are currently doing sex work. So I like to use or I often use performers in my work, because I don’t see why you wouldn’t.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, the stigma against sex workers is something that I’ve talked about on the show a couple of times. I’m always asking people who have any kind of power to hire sex workers, hire former sex workers because it’s hard to find employment. If you’ve been a performer or a stripper, and if you find someone who’s a current sex worker, and they’re seeking a job with your company, hire them. I mean, it’s ridiculous to me that because someone made this conscious decision to do something, and we’ll at least talk about porn and stripping, to do something legal, but then to not be able to work in mainstream or in commercial is – it’s just really disappointing. I think it just proves how far behind we are with coming to grips with our sexuality, which is another reason why we need things like your 98 installation of – we still have a lot of work to do around people being allowed to express themselves sexually without it being used as a weapon against them.
Maggie West: Yeah, no, I mean, I totally agree. I mean, honestly, as somebody who shoots and produces commercial ads all the time, I just think it’s such a waste that there’s this giant group of people who would otherwise be very qualified for a job except for the fact that there’s this weird stigma around hiring them. It’s so funny to me, too, that I get hit up by whatever company and they’re like, “Oh, we really want to do an edgy, crazy ad campaign.” I’m like, “Okay, we’ll come up with whatever,” then I’ll be like, “Hey, this model would be great. Just FYI. She does porn or used to do porn.” “They’re like, “Oh, we could never.” I’m like, “Really? How edgy– That’s ridiculous.”
Dawn Serra: So you meant “Candyland” edgy.
Maggie West: Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I don’t even really think it’s that crazy or edgy, or shouldn’t be to hire somebody who’s done porn, but I guess it’s just where we’re at with a lot of industries.
Dawn Serra: I know there’s a lot of people listening who have either taken nude selfies or sexy selfies for their Tinder profiles and OKCupid meetups or they’re interested in boudoir photography. What do you think makes for a really great picture?
Maggie West: I mean, I genuinely think, and this sounds cliche, but I think confidence. I know it’s super cliche or whatever but in shooting all the people that I shot for 98 – the best photos, in my opinion, were generally the people that were the most comfortable. Conventional beauty standards didn’t play into it. I don’t think nearly as much as just being cool with being in front of the camera, and being confident, and being, “Oh, I look good this way and I look good that way.” The more comfortable you are, the more it’s going to show in the photo. I’ve shot some gorgeous people who were really stiff in front of the camera and their photos did not come out nearly as well as some of the other people who owned it. I mean, I know because I have my own crazy neurotic issues about being in photos, that sometimes, is easier said than done. But to the best of one’s ability. I think if you can make yourself comfortable, however you need to be, then that helps.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. When Chris was on, one of the things he talked about a little bit was the fluids that you did. I get questions all the time on the podcast about people who are squeaked out by come or lube or just the messiness of sex, or they’re looking for ways to have very, very clean, non-wet sex.
Maggie West: Really? Non wet sex?
Dawn Serra: Yeah, like, “I don’t want the spit.” or “I don’t want the come.” or “There’s too much fluids,” that kind of stuff. Then there’s, of course, on the opposite side people who really really love those things. But for you when you did fluids it was saliva, blood, and… Was it semen?
Maggie West: I guess it was come and then my vaginal fluid, too, was also in the mix. So for me, with that series, that was honestly just a quick one off that I didn’t– Normally, I do these big giant projects with people like 98 or 23, in order to maintain my sanity in between these giant projects. I like to do fun, still life, or science experiment-y type series. So this was just one of those. I was thinking about body fluids and how our perception and stigma of like, “Oh, how gross – spit or come or,” whatever. I was like, “Oh, it’d be really interesting to photograph these things in a more beautiful abstract away.” Chris and I had met at that point because we had shot for 23. But we definitely – we were kind of friends on the internet. We weren’t great friends yet. But I wanted to do a male sample and female sample and I wasn’t dating anybody at the time that I felt like I could ask this of. Obviously as you know, he’s a porn performer for like forever, so I was basically like, “Hey, do you want to come do this project with me? I kind of need you to cut yourself and then jizz on some Plexiglass.” Chris is a great sport and agreed to do this for me.
So it was a really interesting day. I don’t remember how much of the semen went into his episode of your podcast. First we’d spit on Plexiglas since that was pretty normal, and then we cut ourselves very very small – like a pinprick or whatever and blood, and shot that. Then we got to come and it was like, “Um?”
Dawn Serra: “Do I watch or?”
Maggie West: Yeah. At this point, we kind of liked each other, but we weren’t dating or anything. We definitely hadn’t made out at all. So I was like, “Should I go for a walk to give you some privacy?” He’s like, “I’m afraid that if you do that, by the time you come back, it’s going to dry and it’s going to look weird.” I was like, “Yeah, you’re right.” So I was like, “Okay, cool.” I just went in my room – like my little closet rather- in my studio and was just hanging out on Twitter while Chris was jerking off in my living room, probably six feet from where I was. My place is very small. Then we shot it and it was fine. Then I saw my fluids after he left. The series came out very pretty and we started dating a few months afterwards, I think.
Dawn Serra: That’s your little bonding story. “We did things with fluids and then started dating.”
Maggie West: Yeah. Before Chris and I made out, he had jerked off in my house and I took a picture of it
Dawn Serra: I love that so much. It just makes me so happy. The thought of calling up someone that’s mostly a stranger but not, and being like, “So I kind of need some blood and come, are you game?”
Maggie West: He’s like, “Of course.”
Dawn Serra: “I’ll be right over.”
Maggie West: Well, at that point, we’re hanging out like a little bit – not a ton, but it’s fine. Again, we definitely kind of liked each other at that point. It’s like a really weird way to flirt.
Dawn Serra: Are there other spaces around relationships or love or bodies or sexuality or gender that you still want to explore with your art that you haven’t yet?
Maggie West: I think eventually I will. I gotta be completely honest with you at this point, I want to take a break from all of that, because I feel like I’ve done a lot with it. I might be doing a project that has something to do with intimacy in the spring. That’s another big install, which I can’t really share too many details about right now. But I might be doing products that’s based off of some earlier work for a thing in the Spring. But aside from that, I don’t know. I mean, I think that if I have a few months off from it, I’ll be more interested in it again. But I think for me, going forward, the next couple things I want to do or like I said earlier, the smaller science-y nature things. I think that there’s a lot more areas of this to explore in the future. But I think for me, personally, I need a little bit of time off from it.
Dawn Serra: So I have a little bit of a technical question for you just around photography. I attended erotic film school in March. I have been slowly but surely, the listeners know, gathering information in my quest to start doing some erotic filmmaking. One of the things that I think is so brilliant about your work is the lighting and the shadows. I’m wondering for people listening, who either want to capture really beautiful images or maybe they’ve been thinking about getting into photography or filmmaking, for you, what’s something that you think all photographers should either know or a tip or a trick that you’ve picked up that makes bodies look beautiful or exquisite – just that little tweak that makes it that much prettier.
Maggie West: For me, if I think there’s any blanket piece of advice for photographers or filmmakers or whatever that are developing is that you should shoot a lot. I know it’s hard, because we’ve all got schedules and day jobs or whatever, but I think if you’re an aspiring photographer and you’re really trying to get better – it’s very obvious advice that you should try and shoot as often as you can. Even if you’re not working with the model you want to be working with or you don’t have the gear you want to do.
One of the things that I feel like has been most detrimental to people, that I hear young photographers doing all the time, is they’re frustrated with their work because they want to do bigger, better things. Say you’re a fashion photographer and you’re super into Italian Vogue, which have giant budgets and big crews and whatever. You’re frustrated because you don’t have all of that stuff and your photos aren’t turning out the way you necessarily want them to. I think that you just need to keep going and figure out what you do have and what you can work with. Then keep practicing and eventually your own style will develop out of that, if that makes sense. I know that that’s not really like a lightning tip.
Dawn Serra: I’m actually really, really happy with that advice. Because it’s very similar to a lot of the advice that I give to people when it comes to sex and relationships of – you’re just going to have to be awkward at stuff sometimes. You might mess it up and it might not be the way that you wanted to. You might get rejected or you might say the wrong thing. But the more that you let yourself show up and practice, the better you get at the thing. So I love that that’s actually the advice you’re offering to artists too. I appreciate it so much.
I’m wondering if you could let people know, how can they stay in touch with you? How can they find your books and see what projects you’re working on, and follow along with your art adventures?
Maggie West: Sure. I mean, it’s 2017 and the easiest way to do that is probably to follow me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is @maggiewest and honestly, I update that more than anything. But my actual website if you want to see overall my portfolio and look through everything or purchase my books is you go to maggiewest.co. You can see almost everything I’ve done on there.
Dawn Serra: Well, I will have all of those links on dawnserra.com/ep181 for this episode, and I hope everyone will check out your gorgeous, gorgeous art and pictures because they have literally been one of my favorite parts of Instagram other than cats for weeks.
Maggie West: Thank you. Cats are also my other favorite part of Instagram too.
Dawn Serra: It’s the reason to sign in to Instagram.
Maggie West: Right. All the kinds of cats.
Dawn Serra: Exactly. I want to thank you, Maggie, for coming on the show and being so generous with your time and your stories. I really appreciate it.
Maggie West: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dawn Serra: I hope you enjoyed that chat with Maggie all about art and bodies and photography. I have been loving the pictures that she’s been posting on her Instagram. So I hope, at a minimum, you’ll go check that out and maybe be inspired to buy one of her books because she does amazing things with lighting.
Also, I sound tired because I’m recording this listener question in the middle of the night. I’m actually down in Seattle at the house of a friend of a friend. Because I spoke at Geek Girl Con in Seattle this weekend, on a panel all about sex ed. It was amazing. It’s actually a pretty big con that’s for celebrating women and girls and femininity, and feminism in geek culture. So there was all kinds of cosplay and gaming and panels on racism and social justice and inclusivity. I had so much fun on this sex panel fielding questions from the audience all about sex and relationships with a whole bunch of rad people from Planned Parenthood and also the amazing and crush-worthy Tobi Hill-Meyer. So that was amazing. But here I am in my pajamas in a foreign house, in the middle of the night, working on this for all of you. I wanted to get more listener questions into the show, I have such a backlog. I love when you write into me. So I want to start trying to fold some of those in, including including them in the Patreon rewards. So totally check that out.
Dawn Serra: Here’s this week’s listener question. It says: “Hey, Dawn, I’m a new listener of Sex Gets Real, and I absolutely love it. I’ve been thinking a lot about my life and my relationship. I am in love with my girlfriend. We fit together so well. We have the same taste of adventure and the most amazing sex life. However, my last girlfriend really messed me up and I still find myself thinking about her sometimes. I even go as far as looking at her Facebook. I was curious if you had some advice for me.”
First of all, you are not alone. Social media has made it so easy to not only stay in touch with people, but to also keep track of people that are no longer in our lives. Also, thank you so much for listening to the show and writing in. It sounds like you’re in a new relationship that feels wonderful. So congratulations and glad that’s a good fit for you.
Dawn Serra: As for checking up on an ex, one, I think it’s totally natural for us to be curious about people that we had significant events with in our lives. Whether those significant events were amazing positive experiences or negative ones that left us really hurting – that curiosity is so natural. 50 years ago, we maybe would have asked around or seen who has seen someone lately, and it would have been a very different process. But of course, people like to find out what’s going on with people they went to high school with or they used to work with. They’re part of our story, whether we like it or not. So I think that curiosity is supernatural. I’m friends with several of my exes on Facebook. And every once in a while I like popping over and just seeing what they’re up to. One recently got married, and the wedding was really sweet and she looks so happy. I have several friends who, a couple times a year, will pop over and look at what their ex husbands are up to or their ex partners, just to see how their story is updating and changing.
I think that curiosity is completely natural. Now if it gets to a point where you’re hiding it and you’re doing it all of the time. I think that’s a little bit different. Another thing to keep in mind is we are a culture that does not know how to deal with complex emotions very well. We don’t have grieving rituals, we don’t have spaces where we’re taught how to grapple with really big, complex feelings. So when we move out of a relationship, we transition out of a romantic relationship or even a friendship. We don’t really have a lot of processes in our lives for processing the grief and maybe the elation in having a new start, and then the guilt at feeling excited, because we should be sad, and also the sadness that we move in and out of – maybe some rage and some anger and some disappointment.
Dawn Serra: So when we don’t have spaces for processing and sitting with and examining these feelings and allowing them to be part of our story, it can become something where we become a little bit stuck. And we start re-writing stories and we start obsessing because we haven’t allowed ourselves to complete that story and to move through the whole process.
So I guess my question for you is thinking about exes is totally natural. Wondering what they’re up to, even thinking about the ways that they hurt us, that their relationship was a terrible fit. That reflection is just part of being human, we reflect on all sorts of experiences in our lives. Is it something that happens every once in a while and when it comes up, it’s just a little uncomfortable and you’re feeling like you shouldn’t have that at all because you’re so happy? Or is it something that’s happening with enough frequency that it’s feeling distracting? If it’s happening a lot, I think one of the things that you need to do is sit with all the feelings that came up for that and see what’s unresolved. Maybe you need to write some things down. Maybe you need to have some conversations with some friends about the places where you’re still feeling stuck. Often when we finally give ourselves a chance to have the feelings and to process them and to actually experience those big emotions that maybe we didn’t have space for at the time of the breakup, we can start finding some space around that. But do know that it’s so natural for the checking up and the wondering and the curiosity. I mean, that’s just part of being human.
Dawn Serra: I also think that it’s super okay if you feel comfortable talking to your girlfriend and letting her know what’s going on for you. It depends on how you bring the conversation up, of course, but there’s no reason that you can’t go to your current girlfriend and ask about her experience with exes, and to ask about her experiences with what it was like moving on and if she stayed in touch with any of them, and then to share your story and, “Sometimes I still check up on my ex. I’m just curious what happened.” Decide if that’s a place where you can build some intimacy and sharing into your current relationship. I hope that’s helpful. I know that was a lot of different options. But 1.) this is such a normal thing and 2.) give yourself a chance to have feelings. They don’t resolve linearly, sometimes it takes us years to move through and understand a relationship that we were in.
So give yourself that space to have that experience. Then enjoy where you are. Enjoy the relationship you’re in. Enjoy your current girlfriend, and the amazing sex and the adventure. Just make sure that whatever reflecting you’re doing whatever kind of curiosity you have, it’s not to the detriment of your existing relationship, because it sounds like that’s something that’s important to you. Thank you so much for listening to the show.
Dawn Serra: Of course, I will be back next week. In the meantime, if you have any questions or stories You can submit those at dawnserra.com using the contact form, there is an anonymous option and be sure to pop over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to check out the new rewards that I just released last week. I will talk to you soon. Bye.