MUSE :: INTERVIEW with Chloe Sheppard "If I don’t see a reason to do something, I'm just gonna let it be."
The Muse Letter No. 49
Some images lull you into a stream of consciousness that seems to meander out of them. A while ago I found myself in the beautiful enchanting worlds that the artist Chloe Sheppard creates with her photography and so I was beyond delighted when we had a long chat the other week on zoom on how she started out as a photographer, coping with lockdown and whether one needs to establish an artist’s practice or not. With only being a tender 24 years old she has already created such an impressive body of work and I’m sure you’re going to be mesmerized by her words and her imagery just as much as I am.
When I asked to interview you a couple of weeks ago, you said that you’re having a hard time creating anything really since lockdown started last year. Is that still the case?
Still very much the case. I mean, I moved back home. So the pandemic is obviously this big pause on projects and motivation and creativity and stuff like that. But yeah, I was in London, living with one of my good friends. This was in March, and then she moved out and lockdown started and I was living alone for the first time, which I was kind of pleased about, I've always wanted to have a place of my own, but then you get into habits and routines that Jenn who was my housemate: she was good at sort of pulling me out of the house, which just makes me feel instantly better. Whereas without her, I sort of fell back into just not being bothered to do anything, because there wasn't anyone to be like: “come on, we really should do something today.”
And then in May, my uncle, who was more like my dad, he had cancer, but he caught COVID and ended up passing away. So I moved back home, which set off a huge grief. Like a swimming pool of grief that I've been sitting in now for months and months, which obviously makes it hard to even think about work or be creative in any sort of aspect.
That must have been really hard. How are you coping?