women eating project.

I came across a painting by Lee Price titled “”strawberry shortcake” while taking the train home from a long day of classes. The painting was of a woman in a bathtub eating strawberry shortcake and I instantly felt like the painting was of me. I have found myself numerous times in the bathtub eating sushi, or Resee’s, or my favorite red velvet cake. I usually do things like that when I want an escape and the more I talked to my friends the more I realized all of them had a food that would become a security blanket or a trap that catches your leg. Women and their relationship with what they eat, how they eat, and often times simply eating is nothing short of a myriad of complex emotions ranging from being nurtured, feeling betrayed, to an abusive battle.

I wanted to take Prices’ painting and apply it to real women. I feel photography offers a different way of seeing the concept because of the immediacy and reality often associated with photographs. I thought I could expound on the conversation started by Price while also paying homage to the work she has done in the realm of painting. It was interesting to me to see the differences in the mediums.

It also became a way to connect with other women. While photographing for this project most of the women who are photographed as the subjects of each one, opened up about their private struggles with their bodies and the food that they hate to love. It became a therapeutic experience for both me and the subjects to think about the battle and put it into context. Often times between magazines and media it seems completely normal and socially accepted for women to deprive themselves. With diet fads and tips in every women’s magazine it seems our job as women are to stay thin and when women aren’t worried about it they are perceived as lazy. It is common to eat three meals a day for most people and that’s three times a day some women stress about, crave, binge or deny the desire to feed their bodies. At least three times times a day women wonder if we are doing enough to be beautiful by the standards of our peers.

It’s those quiet moments that I wanted to capture, when you’re alone and you eat a whole pie by yourself with no one to judge and feel full and satisfied with the lingering thought that you will punish yourself later, but for now, you will just eat and enjoy it.

This is a project I am interested in continuing. If you would want to eat food and let me photograph you please let me know!