Caitlin Arnold



Caitlin Arnold is an amazing Chicago based artist whose series Girls is a realistic portrayal of the strength and insecurity of adolescent girls.



Geronimo Projects: How did you first become interested in photography?
Caitlin Arnold: I first became interested in photography at a very young age. I think my parents have always told me that I’d take their cameras away and take pictures of weird things and “waste” film. Every holiday we went on I would get three to four disposable cameras and was able to photograph whatever, in stead of using my parents film/camera. But it wasn’t until high school that I received my first camera and starting making photographs with thought behind them. I photographed a lot of my friends bands and shows I would go to in the city.
GP: Talk about your series Girls.
CA: I’ve been working on this project since Fall 2007ish. It started with one photograph and that developed into many many more photographs and ideas and motivation for making the work. As it stands now, and approaching the end of this segment of the project, girls is morphing into an exploration of femininity and how adolescent girls portray themselves to the public.



GP: This body of work is an honest portrayal of the awkwardness of being a young woman, but also shows several of the girls as confident, or even confrontational. When you photograph the girls do you have an idea in mind of how you hope to portray them, or do you react to their personality and allow them a voice in how they are portrayed?
CA: I think that it’s a combination of both. Most of the girls I don’t know, so for the first shoot I’m going there trying to figure them out and making pictures that are more “observant”. If I happened to go back a couple more times, I know what kind of photograph I’m looking to make and usually just go for it at that point. Normally after the first shoot, I have a mental picture of what I want out of the next couple of shoots I do.



GP: Adolescent girls struggle with ideas of feminine beauty and the expectations placed on them and their bodies by the media. Is your work at all a reaction to those pressures modern teenage girls have to deal with?
CA: Of course my work is some sort of reaction but that’s not my full intention. I want to show not only how media affects adolescent girls but also how they interpret and then identify with it, if at all. All the girls I have photographed have been affected by the media in some way, the photographs of the older girls…the teenagers, probably have more visual clues of this but I guarantee that the 10 year olds I’ve photographed are processing these things too, they get it. They know what the “ideal” female looks like and have been aware of this since they received their first Barbie or watched their first episode of Hannah Montana.
GP: Who are some of your major influences?
CA: I think everyone is a major influence! Ha. In the beginning it was Sally Mann, Helene Van Meene, Lauren Greenfield, Rineke Dijkstra and they are still major influences but lately I’ve been really into the late Jen Beckman but also a lot of my friends have been great influences. A classmate of mine from undergrad Terttu Uibopuu who is currently in her second year of graduate studies at Yale. Her work is so beautiful, she’s someone I really look up to and look forward to seeing new photographs all the time. I’ve been spending a lot of my time watching movies lately, being influenced by that and the lighting they use.



GP: You have been a major collaborator with the ACRE artist residency program. Can you tell me a little about ACRE and your own involvement with it?
CA: ACRE is the brain child of Emily Green and Nicholas Wylie. They were two of the founders of the Harold Arts Residency Program and once they left, felt like creating a new residency. I jumped on board in the early stages of this program and helped build it up to where it stands now. Much of the work has been done by Emily Green, she is the leading lady here. Her dedication is totally inspiring and I hope to someday be able to take on projects the way she does! I am one of the Assistant Directors of the program, along with Ciara Ruffino. We pretty much do whatever Emily and Nick need us to do, which includes brainstorming sessions about new ideas/fundraisers, organizing fundraisers, promotional things, grant writing etc etc. During the summer when the residency is in action, the four of us maintain control over the entire program along with our staff members (which usually includes about 10 people) who rotate jobs around the farm.



GP: What was your experience like attending the residency? How did it further your own work?
CA: When I attended the Harold Arts Residency Program, it blew my mind. I’d never really been around any other kind of artists besides photographers because Columbia College’s program is so tight and secluded. Being around all different kinds of people from different backgrounds was so inspiring to me. When ACRE became a real thing, I tried to keep these feelings in the back of my mind the whole time. Even this past summer, having been away from Chicago for six-seven weeks and meeting about 80ish artists, helped further my work. I was able to see how every resident worked differently, thought about art, talked about art, talked about life etc etc. It’s extremely inspiring and made me want to create and think more than ever.
GP: How has your work been influenced by the Chicago art community?
CA: The Chicago art community has opened up since graduating college, but this has to do with all the things I am involved with. Because of all my jobs and programs I am affiliated with, I’ve met so many people that I can have conversations with and bounce ideas off of. The encouragement to create is immense and most people are so positive and excited to see the next thing happening.



GP: What does the future hold for Caitlin Arnold?
CA: The future is always changing for me. Haha. Sometimes I want to be an astronaut and then other times I want to move to the middle of nowhere for a while and relax. I think it’s important to have a couple goals that make sense and are reachable and then have a couple that are so far out there, that if achieved, it’s a miracle. Right now I’m trying to make it through the cold cold winter and looking forward to making some new photographs.
GP: What’s on your playlist? What do you listen to to get pumped?
CA: Holy moly…at this second I’m listening to The Rolling Stones. Normally when I photograph I don’t play any music, I like it to be nice and quiet. I’ll sing a song in my head if one is there though. I listen to a lot of Black Sabbath, Sleep and Earth lately. And I really like listening to depressing/mellow music when I’m working in the studio, a lot of soul music being played. Anything I can sing along to. This is a tough question and could probably go on for another paragraph or two but will stop here…



http://caitlinarnold.com