Former Flame Fridays - Anna Thorne
4/25/25
You were featured in volume 4, what has happened since?: What hasn't! I'm learning the balance of logic and intuition in my day to day life, and this dance can be traced in my visual work (In particular, the series 'Traces of Silence'). Where once my subject matter was completely without a sense of time and space, ebbing in the flow of eternal abstraction, it now meets the hard-edged texture of recognizable reality. Learning how to balance the two in my work will undoubtedly be an ever-evolving journey that constantly challenges the way I capture images and experience the world around myself.
What/who inspired form/formless? How does it fit into your style/body of work? It was graduate school that began the initial evolution from self portraiture to abstraction. A particular professor actually posed the question in my first year of graduate school, "What if there was no form?". I looked at her like a monster with three heads, because, how in the world could I make work to express myself without the human form? That question challenged my entire view of photography as a means of self exploration, as I practice the act of photography not only as a way to express my inner world to others, but more so to help understand my own self.
Why Troublemaker Firestarter? What compels you to submit your work? Why be a writer at the end of the world? It instantly seemed like an off-beat, go your own way, raw-truth seeking publication. To put your work out there, whether it is online, in print, hanging in a gallery etc., is a special kind of feeling. Knowing that you made something that expresses some kind of inner truth for you, and knowing that, very likely, it will resonate with someone else in their own way, it's a lovely soul-feeling state of awareness. It's really a form of deep intimacy, between the creator and the viewer, when the viewer really sits with it, and yet all the while, you will likely remain strangers all your lives.
Who are your current favorite writers? Well, my favorite photographer is Saul Leiter. He photographed predominantly around his neighborhood in New York City. A lot of his work is made within the radius of a few blocks, and I find that extremely inspiring. He didn't go to far off places to make stunning images, instead, he become intimately aware of the little universe in his own little piece of the city. As far as writers go, it would go from the varying landscapes of Aldous Huxley and Robert Jordan (TWOT) to Kate Chopin (The Awakening) and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
Are you a troublemaker, a firestarter, a heartbreaker, a lucky duck, a devil, a terror, or sad and horny? A lucky duck that occasionally finds herself in a spot of mischief.
Where can people find you? @annathornephoto and annathorne.com
What would you want the lovely readers of Substack to do? Find yourself, and keep a piece of that, however small, with you throughout your life. All the money or power or recognition in the world is not worth the loss of oneself. It is a cliche, because it is true. Hold on dearly to that thread, because whether you feel it or not, the world will pull that thread out of your hands if you aren't careful.
