Friday, January 18, 2019

Overcoming self imposed fears-part one


I do not like public talking, especially when I am the central focus.
or when ALL eyes are on me.
I have taken public speaking classes to conquer this discomfort...
but after many years 
and the comforts of making myself more of a hermit....
public talks are foreign once again.

So when a local college professor called asking if I would speak to his folio class
I said sure.
No big deal...it was weeks away

I approached this in a SUPER casual way and I think it helped keep my nerves at bay.
I didn't overthink anything.

Today was the day.
The Barren helped put my work into a PowerPoint and showed me how to use it.
and I walked into a college class and spoke for 40 MINUTES 
in front of a room full of photography students
about my work and process and history.
Aside from those moments when you hear your own voice and go 
"where am I and what am I doing?!" 
I think it went as best as it could for being all over the place.

When the professor asked about artists, he always mentioned men.
When he referenced contemporary artists working in a particular style he mentioned men.
He referenced curators and jurors as masculine.
When I responded to his references my answers to him were always female.
The curator is this show is a women, that juror is a woman...
the owner of that gallery is a woman, the person making that style of art lives nearby and is a woman.

I was surprised by his lack of knowledge/reference of female artists and curators.
My corrections came natural to me, and ideally were picked up by the artists in class.
When I got home I told the Barren and he said:

"I am proud of you...you just did something that is not in your nature, 
and it is so important to have women representing in classes, 
for exactly the reason you saw"

Gosh he is a wordsmith to my heart....

Fearful moment #1:
public speaking-no big deal


1 comment:

Mali said...

Brava!!! Good for you. Both for overcoming your fear, and for correcting the innate sexism of the professor. I'm so sick of women being rendered invisible, even unintentionally. I hope you're proud of yourself!

I once took a senior engineer to a client I had been working with in the Philippines to present at a seminar. Despite the fact that the room was full of women who were engineers (by far the majority), he continually referred to engineers in the masculine. I pointed out to him layer. He had been oblivious. He needed to hear it.