The Sky is Blue: beginnings- endings- becoming

The sky is blue. The sky is blue. The sky is blue.

My thoughts staring upwards as my husband told me he cheated on me, the sky is blue.

The Sky is Blue is a photographic memoir documenting my accidental archive of beginnings, endings and becoming. I knew I had to make work about my life falling apart together I just didn’t quite know where to begin. Turns out I already made it collecting meaningful images, objects and mementos over the last 24 years.

My collection practices have been with me since I was a child and continue to this day. Maybe it’s not too surprising then that I discovered a beginning for this project in the things teenage Michele kept while falling for her first love. I did not know then that he would become my husband, the father of my daughter and heartbreakingly my ex-husband too. Since I ended my marriage I have explored the glories and agonies of single motherhood, chopped the tip of my finger off with an axe and endured traumas working in healthcare during the pandemic. What I initially thought was a story about us was actually a more fascinating story about me; so many selves represented here.

Over the years I’ve built strategies into my art practice which force me to get out of my head. I hide my work from myself long enough to let go of the unresolved or obsessive issues I encountered while creating it. Forgetfulness is required. Forgetting becomes remembering with new eyes. The interplay between the accuracy of facts and the gaps inherent in memory is where the magic happens. It is also where Photography’s philosophically flawed documentary ways perfectly align. The records we make and the records we keep are always much more than they appear to be, part fact part fiction and all true.

My impulse to keep special things in my youth became an extended self portrait, a long exposure as if I left the shutter open creating a time lapse of a story writing itself, a story of becoming.

This is an ongoing project. Further mining of the archive continues.

The “Becoming” Triptychs emerged first. Additional pieces will be added as they are completed.

Link to my Artist Talk introducing this body of work as part of The Center for Fine Art Photography's exhibition, Center Forward 2023.

Watching where the sky meets ground in the Rocky Mountains and the Moab desert thanks to my beloved home state of Colorado and new love in Utah.

-presence & presents-

seeing hymns

tying bows

touching prayers stone by stone

first light virtues

offerings

this moment is a gift-

a river rushes below

heaven’s flicker and glow

bowing last light

of mountain

of shadow

of ash

of sky

the stars arise

light finding light

-M. Lyn

All photographs are printed in my studio.

Archival Pigment Prints mounted on 8” x 10” Vibrant Acid Free Paper.

Each photograph is signed and numbered within its edition.

Purchase Prints HERE

My identical twin and I were born in 1984, when sequencing the human genome gathered great scientific and medical minds on a global scale. The hospital where we were born automatically added us to a Twin Registry notifying twin study programs of our arrival. My first memory of a twin study is around seven years old. Two graduate students from The Institute of Behavioral Genetics at CU Boulder came to our house. I was separated from my twin and timed while I arranged colored tiles according to instructions given. It was an hour or more of problem solving tasks followed by a DNA swab. That was thirty years ago and I have participated in many many studies since then, primarily for IBG’s Longitudinal Twin Study. Growing up as twin study subject during the era of The Human Genome Project had a profound impact on me.

The Poetics of Twinship is an ongoing research project about my experience as an identical twin. So far three distinct bodies of work have been made:

Twice Upon a Time (2008-2010)

United Untied (2010-2016)

The Space Between (2017)

Each one introduced me to new approaches for exploring identity. It all began during my graduate studies in 2008 as Twice Upon A Time (2008-2010). I made a decades worth of work in 2 years. I took self portraits, interviewed and photographed my twin, examined xerox prints of her MRI brain scans, read up on any and all things twins, especially Epigenetics, and wrote prolifically in response to my discoveries. Graduate school ended but my infatuation with my twin and me did not.

United U n t i e d (2010-2016) followed. This time I looked more closely at my family’s photo albums. How my Mom labeled the back of the photos picturing my twin and me as newborns immediately fascinated me. It was not only our names and the year the picture was taken but an added note of who was who, “11/11/84 Steve, Kristen and Michele. Michele is on Steve’s shoulder.”

Out of practical necessity my Mother developed a system to help tell us apart in her day to day as well as in the family archive. My grandfather wrote directly on top of his photographs of my twin and me. “M’s” and “K’s” grace our midsections throughout his pictures of our childhood. I also noticed how intentional my Mom was, she gave us our own set of birthday candles even though we shared the same cake. We took turns blowing them out. These behaviors gave me pause. Our comparative response to identical twins existence seems innate.

I was also drawn to our annual school pictures from picture day. I scanned both of our images from kindergarten through 12th grade and arranged them side by side. The standardized format helps our individuality shine. When did we begin to look less like one another and more like two individuals? As annoying as it was to be compared to my twin growing up, I get it now, we’re fun to look at side by side.

The Space Between (2017) is an installation I designed for my solo exhibition United Untied. I merged various mapping techniques that analyze human bodies and territories within the universe and beyond. How we illustrate the breadth of information built in to our DNA reminds me of how we drew maps of the early frontiers of land and sky. I wanted the viewer to have an immersive experience into my research practice .

Due to the overwhelming amount of information I collect and produce, I make research notebooks. I print my work on transparent vellum and photographic paper then play with overlaying images and text. Both Twice Upon A Time and United U n t i e d have a similar spiral bound book format, while The Space Between is a research notebook mapped out on a wall. These books perfectly demonstrate the endless ways I ponder twinship.

I am a twin.

For me, I is both we and me.

I = ii and ii = I

I am fascinated by research on the ongoing change between identical twin’s genetic material and how it challenges the very definition of identical twins. In this investigation entitled, Twice Upon A Time, I’ve been looking through my double helix at my twin, Kristen. We have always been differentiating ourselves from one another on the surface of our bodies; and now this individuation contains profound implications for the events unfolding on the genetic level. In the process of reassessing our identicality, I’ve embraced science’s ability to trace, describe and depict change. The natural history it writes- then edits- and re-writes again- provides infinite source material for my work. Scientific images become templates on which I overlay my personal data: thoughts on my identity as an identical twin and photographs of me as a twin study subject. Twice Upon A Time began before I was born and will continue for the rest of my life.

Swaddled together forever in ponder and play,

unite

u n t i e

u n t i e

unite

Nearness inherently holds far-ness, right?

inside

outside

through

as a whole

in its parts

:DNA makes our bodies transparent:

holding

family

memory

theory

United U n t i e d (2010-2016) is the second body of work from my ongoing research project, The Poetics of Twinship. Initially my curiosity was driven by science: its capacity to provide evidence was soothing. My first exploration of this work, Twice Upon A Time (2008-2010), shows my obsessive compulsion to prove the validity of my questions. Although science continues to inform my art, it is no longer my central mode of inquiry. I am less concerned now about proof and more curious about the act of questioning itself. What is it like to be a twin? I unfolded the spaces surrounding Question and Answer by opening my process to countless contributors, my two favorites: chance and synchronicity. Perhaps this is because these two ideas are at the root of all identical twins’ existence: one egg spontaneously split into two.

United U n t i e d documents my attempt to describe twinship. For me, being a twin is often an oscillation between individuality and togetherness on many levels: on the surface of our bodies (the physical), below the surface of our bodies (the genetic) and beyond the surface of our bodies (the psychological, spiritual and philosophical). Over the past six years I collected and created numerous metaphors. They came from various sources: family snapshots, quotes from philosophers and twins, memories, mapping techniques, my body, etcetera. I began this research in my family archive because it contained the first images of my twin and me. Two fundamental facts became evident: being a twin is an inherently visual experience and the question of “Who is who?” is a practical necessity. Seeing double immediately produces a lot of questions.

I often imagine how magnificent it must have been to peer through the first set of lenses that pulled the cosmos into view. Wow, to literally have the surface of planetary objects projected on to the retina, heaven’s light inside the body. Our gaze upward naturally turned inward. Now, we also explore the cosmos within our DNA. When my identical twin and I participate in twin studies, we become a set of genetic lenses that reveal a profoundly astronomical amount of information. The universe within and beyond continues to simultaneously define themselves and each other.

I am both a genetic map read by researchers, and the mapmaker. In this piece, I trace and describe the orbits encircling my twin self.

Theory:

The value of an object depends on the context it exists within.

Hypothesis:

If a feminine object is removed from its original context and placed into a masculine context, then it will or will not be valued as a feminine object.

Definition of Value:

Value: the regard that something is held to deserve; importance or worth.

Procedure:

1. Collect and categorize feminine objects.

2. Photograph findings.

3. Present to public.

Data:

The Change in Value Women : Men in 2007

Science +/-

Engineering +/-

Museum/Gallery representation +/-

Solo Exhibitions +/-

- : decrease

+/- : neither increase or decrease

+ : increase

Conclusion:

It is inconclusive at this point, but the research findings to date reveal little to no fluctuation in change of value. This information naturally lends itself to a negative interpretation. And, it does not seem to leave a lot of room for an optimistic outlook on the future of women in the arts and sciences. Instead is seems to continually deepen the wound women have been dressing for centuries. Initially, I internalized this information as the proof of women’s constant battle for value in western culture, a battle that was not proving to be in our favor. But, I soon realized that despite historical and contemporary stereotypes imposed on women, we have never been incapable of contributing to our culture. Our capacity to learn and become knowledgeable has always been equal to men. Thus, our minds have the same infinitely inquisitive attributes. Recognizing the strength women have always possessed intellectually, ignited my inquiries about how I could combine my femininity, my love for science and pursuit of photography. The answers were revealed upon reflection within the woundedness I felt after having learned about how the rise of science as a worldview destroyed the authority of women.