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office people: Willow Defebaugh
What is your ideal office?
At home surrounded by my plants and my dog.
What is your morning routine?
I wake up and go for a walk with my dog and pick up a matcha. I find that moving my body and getting fresh air first thing in the morning is critical for starting the day off right. If it’s a writing day, I might sit for a tea meditation to allow the words to pour in.
When was the last time a book made you cry?
Every book makes me cry. I’m a voracious reader, and something about leaving a world behind makes me emotional — regardless of the ending. Perhaps that’s why I do the work that I do.
Who was the first person you idolized?
My mother. She taught me to see the world with wonder. She still does.
Where do you go when you write?
First I go in, then I go out.
What is your favorite essay in The Overview?
There’s an edition about crows and ravens — how they have been observed holding funerals — and the universality of grief that comes to mind. Or the one about the mystery of dark matter and dark energy, which comprise the vast majority of our universe and yet scientists cannot identify. And another about dragonflies and incomplete metamorphosis, which came from a deeply tender place.
What’s something you’ve learned about nature that other people should know?
Despite the frameworks many of us have been raised with, nature is inherently queer and trans. Countless species exhibit homosexual behavior and exist on a spectrum when it comes to sex and gender — including gynandromorphic birds and insects, clownfish that change sex, and fungi that exist in tens of thousands of different forms of what we call gender. Biodiversity is the hallmark of nature, and what is queerness if not a celebration of that?
Is romanticism dead?
It’s up to us what we let die, and what we let live on through us. I choose to be a romantic. I think I always knew that I wouldn’t survive this world if I didn’t fall in love with it.
Which weather phenomenon best describes you?
I’ve always loved summer storms. Something about the rain and lightning feel cathartic to me, like a release of tension building under the surface that you couldn’t previously place. Maybe that’s not me, but I hope it’s what my words can be.
What have you learned recently about yourself?
That I never stop evolving.
How do you find balance?
I write.
If you could be any animal for a day, which one would you choose?
A hummingbird. They are the only animal that has the ability to hover, which they adapted in order to remain unmoving enough to drink the nectar of delicate flowers without damaging them. I often think about that: how sweet it would be to finally learn to be still.
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"These Days I Pay Attention to What’s Inside Myself": Bruce Gilden
Hi Bruce. Congratulations on opening a major show! How do you feel?
It’s always nice to have a major show especially since the work is very strong and it looks great, but I have to say that I could have put many more photos in the show without a loss of quality.
You were intimately involved in the curation, what was the process of looking back at your career like?
I curated the show and chose photographs that I liked, some iconic and others less known, showing where I started and where I am now.
Before you were a photographer, you studied sociology. In a way, I view your photography as a sociological study. Would you agree?
I only took one sociology course in college. I photograph what interests me.
You mentioned watching Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) as a turning point that decided your pivot toward photography. Does cinema continue to have an impact on your photographic practice?
I’m not a fan of Antonioni as a director but because of the movie Blow-Up, photography became fashionable in 1966 so it crossed my mind that I could try being a professional photographer. I never held a camera in my hand before.
Cinema has always had an impact on my photography. My candid work has definitively been influenced by Film Noir among other genres.
You started with black-and-white photography and people on the streets of New York which you intimately know, in a time when photography was transitioning toward color and increasingly given a political function. How and why did you decide against what was in vogue?
It was in Coney Island that I started my black-and-white photography, and then I worked on the streets of New York.
I see in B&W and I’m not into trends. My motto is “Be Yourself”.
Then you started doing color photography only recently. Why?
I still do B&W, but I felt I needed a change. You can’t do the same thing forever, and when you start something new and different, you feel energized.
You use flash and capture people in their most vulnerable moments. There is a different kind of closeness here. What draws you to socially marginalized populations?
I don’t agree with your statement about “vulnerable moments”. What draws me to socially marginalized populations is that I’m an outlier and not part of the mainstream. I just feel comfortable with them.
Do you feel connected to them through photography?
No, I feel connected to them through life, and photography is the bridge that connects us.
Your photography evokes strong reactions from critics and the public alike. Do you ever feel misunderstood for the choice of your subject matter?
I have many people — critics and those in the public who consider me legendary, and others who don’t like my work. Whether you like it or not, it doesn’t leave you indifferent. My pictures are about real people and real life. I photograph what’s inside my heart.
You’ve photographed Japanese yakuza mobsters, sex workers, and bike gangs. Could you say more about such attractions?
Since childhood, I have been attracted to characters, and If you know something about my past (myself, my parents), you’ll know where this attraction stems from.
Do you ever stage your subjects for theatrical effects? Or are you only interested in utmost authenticity?
In my newer face and waist-up portraits mostly in color, I ask permission. All my other work is candid as is some of the recent work (Bikers, Korea, Italy, etc).
Do you pay attention to other filmmakers and photographers? If so, who are you watching?
When I started photography, I learned my craft by looking at other photographers’ work and then eventually I became Bruce Gilden. These days I pay attention to what’s inside myself.
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Synchronicity: Maisie Williams
And who better to speak on personal revelation than an actor who’s grown up in the spotlight, a crucible of self-perception? Amidst the distractions of stardom, the Game of Thrones star’s enduring self-confidence has given her something we all should be envious of: she knows who she is, the path she’s on, and how to traverse the unpredictability of life.
With a range of diverse projects under her belt since the finale of Game of Thrones and a highly-anticipated Christian Dior biopic series freshly out on Apple TV, Williams finds herself increasingly grounded by her own private revelations. She takes the time to explain herself, responding directly and without hurry to my deeply personal questions about meditation, social pressure, and self-perception with honesty and an engaged sense of humble self-assuredness.
By the end of our conversation, I felt a sense of illumination from our time together: like my own philosophies around serendipity and the flow of the universe had been truly seen in a rare moment of human connection across screens.
For this feature, I wanted to present William’s thoughts unobstructed by anything more than this introduction. A snapshot of her current state of mind and own private revelations: perception and epiphany in a beautifully clear understanding of the world.
ON FEELING LIKE HER OWN PERSON
I’ve spent a lot of time alone over the last couple of years and I've spent a lot of time on self-development — a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation, a lot of therapy, and a lot of journaling. From a young age, the way I saw myself was dictated mostly by the way that I was seen publicly, but now I really feel like I can see myself for who I am — how people [feel] who are not in the public eye feel.
I used to think of myself as two people, like the famous side of myself and then the normal side, but now I feel like those two people have become one again. I'd say it's been gradual, [coming to my sense of self]. I think that it's definitely been propelled by meditation and yoga practice. Also, [there’s] something that everyone always says: “You turn 25 and then your brain closes over.” During my 26th year, I could really see parts of my personality or decisions from my past or conversations from my past differently. And that's just something that you can't control. It's just part of growing up, I guess. But for me, that was so profound.
ON DRESSING TO REFLECT A SENSE OF SELF
I think that this kind of idea — of “method dressing” — is not something that I invented, but have definitely adopted with [Pistol and New Look]. I think that I really started to focus on doing projects that I really, really loved — I’ve had such an influx of opportunity come in since being on Game of Thrones, which obviously puts me in a very, very fortunate position, but I think — with these two projects in particular — what’s been really nice is just feeling like they’re very aligned with what I want to do and how I want to be seen.
And so the press surrounding that and [the ability] to tailor my looks to the characters that I play has been just a really nice extension of the creativity that comes with my job. There’s not a lot of creative freedom as an actor: I’m not writing the scripts or picking the looks or whatever. So it’s nice to incorporate that level of creativity in dressing for press and for premieres and so on. I think that — really to get to that point, I think I just grew a lot, in [my] confidence in myself. Now I just feel excited to be in control of my image rather than feeling completely overwhelmed by it.
I used to see myself as very driven and constantly moving and constantly pushing, but now I can just sort of sit and be taken, rather than feeling that frantic energy of I have to make the future happen.
ON FINDING JOY IN THE SMALL MOMENTS
I love the simplicity of life, really. The things that bring me the most joy are just seeing my post lady, going to my local yoga place, and seeing some of the ladies that I practice with there — just real simple things.
I recently had my pipes freeze over, and so I went to my neighbor's house to take a shower, and I felt part of the community in a way that's just very simple and beautiful. I’ve just been nurturing my circle and my world to a point where I find these little synchronicities, which is really beautiful.
I think when you get really famous, your circle gets really small and you get less trusting and you get kind of nervous or whatever, and I think my circle is still very small, but in this beautiful little world that I feel like I’ve built, being able to being humbled by the water pipes and still needing to go and rely on someone such a beautiful detail in life. I was walking over to her house and right above her door there was this shooting star. I’ve never seen a shooting star before in my life, and I just felt like at that moment everything was aligned to where it was supposed to be.
ON TAKING REAL TIME FOR RELATIONSHIPS
At the moment, I feel really drawn towards nurturing incredible friendships and relationships that have been part of my life forever, but have never been a huge part of my daily ritual. Even though I do spend a lot of time alone, I feel like I have so much more trust and love in my friendships. The relationships in my life were always there, but I think I was too worried to call upon them in my time of need. Now I feel so secure with these incredible people who care about me and want beautiful things for me. I’ve always cared about them and wanted beautiful things for them, but it feels like now there’s a really beautiful flow and that trust is very strong when I’m with those people. I think [it comes down to] just making sure that you’re not just seeing someone so that, in your mind, you have crossed that off a list.
If you’re with that person and there’s something happening in their life where they feel you are open enough for them to be able to share those things and vice versa — I think that’s probably one of the key things that changed. I used to be like, “Okay, I’m going to go home. I’m going to see everyone and I’d spend three seconds with everyone that I wanted to see.” And the whole time I was like, “I’ve got to work on Monday and learn my lines and what was the point really, because no one has changed...” It’s [better] to think about those moments being sacred and being something that you put a lot of your time into or that can take up a real permanent space in your mind as [they’re] happening, rather than being stuck in the past or stuck in the future during those interactions.
ON EMBRACING SYNCHRONICITY
I walk my dog in the same place all the time, and I’ve been talking about how I really want to get a lamb because I have a big garden and I’d love to have a little lamb. I was walking and there’s this lady walking towards me with a lamb on a leash, and I was like, “What are the chances that I’ve met that crazy lady who has a pet lamb?”
Yeah, I just think that what I’ve really learned is that these synchronicities have found me in a really beautiful way, and whenever they pop up, now I really have the space to see those tiny little details that bring me the most joy and keep me on the path and make me feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I can trust in that now and not feel like I’m just floating through time and space, never really landing or sticking anywhere, searching for who I am. I now just feel very present in this moment and am really just drinking it in, when these beautiful simple things happen.
ON THE FLOW OF THE UNIVERSE
I used to see myself as very driven and constantly moving and constantly pushing, but now I can just sort of sit and be taken, rather than feeling that frantic energy of I have to make the future happen. I feel like it’s all going to happen the way that it’s supposed to, which is definitely a calmer way to live life and definitely puts a lot less wrinkles on my face and gray hairs on my head, so that’s nice.
