belies the thousands of hours spent
taking and looking at pictures that
didn’t make the cut.”
Harvey acknowledges that failure
is an instructive part of the creative
process. “You learn from what doesn’t
work,” she says. “But I just keep at it
and wait to be witness to when every-
thing comes together—color, light,
the moment. If you know exactly how
a picture is going to turn out before
you’ve made it, then I think you’ve
missed out on the beauty of being
an artist.”
Despite the work’s source in every-
day life, big events have influenced its
character and direction. “Becoming a
mother made me a stronger photog-
rapher,” says Harvey, who’s married
to filmmaker Doug Stradley. “It gave
me a better understanding of love but
also of fear. Love and fear are power-
ful ingredients for a photograph.”
Harvey’s daughter, Scout—the focus
of both those emotions—has been
a frequent subject, as have her niece
and the young daughters of friends.
Even the adults in Harvey’s pictures
are mostly female, and the work feels
as if it could only have been made by
a woman. Another big event that had
a defining effect on Harvey’s photog-
raphy was a serious 2015 car accident,
which left her unable to speak for sev-
eral months. “It was really traumatic,”
she recalls. “After that, when I put
pictures up on a wall, they seemed to
exist on this precipice between heaven
and hell. I realized not only that I
was making work in response to theaccident but also that my work is about
the fragility of life.”
...H
arvey’s creative process has
always included writing. “I’ll
make breakfast, walk my dog,
come back and do some writing,” she
says. “I try to write every day, and I think
the writing helps me focus the work.”
Harvey’s three monographs (plus
her handmade, limited-edition art-
ist’s books) all incorporate her writ-
ing, which takes a sort of prose-poem,
stream-of-consciousness form. She says
the writing consists largely of “nota-
tions on the everyday,” though some of
it’s based on memories. She gives spe-
cial attention to its presentation in the
books, including type treatment and
overall design, sometimes combining a
particular font with cursive.
Her Ogunquit show gives full play
to the writing; letterpress and hand-
lettered text is framed just like the
photographs. “It’s the first time in my
work’s presentation that words have
been elevated to the same level,” she
explains. “It reflects the fact that the
writing has become just as important
to me as the images.” The exhibi-
tion even features phrases and words
(“Suck/Smell/Stare/Scratch/Sigh” in
vivid blue) that Harvey has had ren-
dered in neon by a local artisan.
“I’ve always felt that Cig’s work
wasn’t limited to a single medium or
purely photographic,” says curator
Mansfield. “I wanted to represent her
whole creative practice rather than a
single vein.” Mansfield took a cue from
the narrative density of Harvey’s books,
mounting the show so that framed
pieces literally abut one another. Addi-
tionally, he alternates the works of text
and photos in the exhibition.
Among the 72 pieces in the show are
examples of Harvey’s “motion” images,
all matted so that they fit right in with
the conventional prints, albeit in deeper
frames to accommodate the high-res-
olution LCD panels on which they’re
displayed. A hasty viewer might not
even notice that anything is moving in“Kirsten,” Lake Megunticook, Maine, 2004 digitalphotopro.com November/December 2019 | 39