Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel
Written by Jess Parsons
The book
Dear Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel,
Honestly: It feels like pure, alchemical magic to me, when somehow, flipping through pages of photographs or grasping onto lines of poetry can lead you to this new place, a more honest emotional space. Arriving to these beautiful experiences of transformation are what fueled me to create love letter — To let a work of art, design, or a precious book allow you to land in this moment, to feel your hands touch the page, or feel your own gaze on your screen — to feel a sense of discovery + inner pause.
On Being an Angel took me to one of these new places within, a place of inner blooming, softness, unfiltered vulnerability. A raw, gorgeous undone sense of self. Like a tree letting go of its leaves, and watching them rush far away with the wind, this sensation of letting go inspired me to respond by creating textual, photographic images, a series called feel how you feel.
In November 2020, I shared this series + wrote Feel how you feel : Francesca Woodman.
Now, it is May 2021, and I still feel this sense of being lost & found in her luminous black & white photographs of her self — her body appears ghostly, as an angel, neither here nor there. Celestial, earthly, levitating, somewhere in between, always. (Maybe how I also feel, always.)
Perhaps, this state of being an angel points to an eternal cycle of arrival & departure, from souls traveling from earth to heaven & back, from form to formless, or one feeling to the next. As both the subject & object of her own photographs, Francesca becomes something gorgeously intangible, like a cloud, shifting in space over time, watching herself exist, become, & dissolve, quietly in the frame.
In many images, the slow shutter speed renders her nearly formless, but we sense her deep presence, with only the light & the camera capturing her. For only a brief moment, we too can catch ourselves in this state of angel. I cherish this book of her art & the mysterious beauty it offered to me, to see myself & desires so lucidly. ✧
Some books leave you feeling much more than you intended to feel.
They may even help you remember to locate the truth of your emotions, to feel how you feel, just as Francesca Woodman’s book of photographs, On Being an Angel allowed me to feel. This love letter is addressed to the book that started this space of love letter.
