Teresa Flowers - A Conversation
She sat down with Chamomile tea and tacos. She is dimi9nutive in statute in person, which surprised me. Her art is so large, so vibrant, and so encompassing that I did not imagine a shock of blond hair and a face that would be completely hidden behind the camera. What shines more than anything else is the brightness of her eye as they dart around, glimpsing every detail around her, staging the area for a photo shoot.
Her commitment to her art is all-encompassing. While she is best known as a photographer, Teresa Flowers is a bundle of creative talent that goes from modeling top painting to fashion design and styling. She started her artist lifestyle in elementary school, drawing her classmates. In 4th grade, she really had one approach. “I drew everyone like they were from ‘I Dream of Jeanine’. Every girl was coming out of a bottle, and every boy had huge muscles.” To her surprise, the kids would tape the drawings to their desks. She loved the recognition. “I really had my first art show in my classroom.”
Her parents, both artists, saw a natural talent and enrolled her in private lessons. What grew from that early education was an eye for realism. When she was 17, she did her first photoshoot with her 15-year-old sister. Dressed as an angel, with stars on her face, and her hair curled, and in a room draped with white sheets, she applied the realism of her drawing to the camera, the magic of drawing with light. And that was when she was invested in photography.
And that led her to the darkroom and how she fell in love with the craft of photography. One of her first photos was a long exposure of her mother where she imposed her face on her mother’s body, and people called it haunting. What she didn’t tell anyone was that her mom was dying of AIDS at the time and that because of the stigma from the disease, the only way she could process her emotions was through her creativity, her craft, and her lens. She realized at that moment that her art was a way for people to see her. She met this realization with the burst of a newfound love and then realized just how scary being completely vulnerable can to. And that is the artist’s existence. “I now have a voice. I have a purpose. Oh, no, people are going to know me and see me.”
Nikon 6006 was her first camera. And actual film was a thing. She upgraded to a Hasselblad camera which became her steady companion for 20 years. She sold it to pay rent in Los Angeles. And that was one of the great initial sacrifices as an artist. To Flowers, to be an artist is not an easy title. “There are a lot of people who know how to push a button on a camera. But they have never been in a dark room, they don’t know how to use film. They don’t know how to use their camera,” she tells me as she sips her tea. “Those people aren’t artists. They are image capturers.”
I asked her when she knew she was an artist. She smiled and said simply, “Don’t call yourself an artist. Let other people call you an artist. And you’ll know when you are ready to an artist.”
She is an artist through and through. She has spent her whole life being an artist. She has dedicated her life to it. She has sacrificed everything, every material comfort that other people take for granted for her art. And that shows in the beauty of her creations.
“Do you feel like you need validation for your art? Or is the art validation enough?”
She laughs. “You can always use the validation.”
She knows she is great. She knows her work is amazing. But feeling that other people don’t care, like you have laid your soul bare, and no one notices, leaves her feeling exposed. But this vulnerability is the key to her artistic vision. Her creations are about exposing the sensual and raw nature of the subjects and the themes. I ask her how she manages to stay positive and keep driving her art forward, and she only taps her teacup and says, “It is pointless at times, and then people show up at the right time, and when you need it, and they inspire you.”
She tells me the sacrifice for her art has taught that she is the purpose. “It is hard for creative to give everything to everything else,” she says, referring obliquely to jobs, or people, or even other people’s projects, “and leaving nothing for you to be creative and creating your own purpose.”
Now, she has a purpose. Everything she does is purposeful. It helps her evolve and grow. Her purpose is to be herself, regardless of what she does. She has learned to give up a little on perfection by giving up a little control.”
“Perfection can hold you back.”
Her purpose is also found in her other projects. She founded the Creative Development Institute, a mentorship program that allows her to work with new photographers. They get to work one on one with her, and she gets to teach them and show them how to build a business and help them hone their art. She looks for passion and drive because she knows that she can teach.