Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Poffenberger
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In 2018, I was ungracefully dwelling in a cramped mom van (#vanlife) where I mostly kept to myself. I finally gave up the goat when I broke out in head-to-toe hives while trying to stealth camp in Los Angeles. At this point, I was on the cusp of thirty, and felt very much like I hadn’t lived up to my own self-imposed expectations of endless adventure and scrapbookable moments. And every day, louder and louder, I could hear the tick-tock of time looming over me, telling me to settle down, get a cat, grow some broccoli, and accept that the train car of adventure had rattled past my youth and that I had now entered a less reckless and significantly more tired chapter of my life.
Nonetheless, I was determined not to leave my twenties until I had captured some sort of feeling. So, I spent months researching, working doubles at a taqueria in West Seattle, and arguing with my mom over how to correctly cook an omelet, all to save money for my next big attempt at scratching that itch. Finally, I took an old backpack from my mom’s closet and set out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I’m happy to report that I found that perfect feeling I was hoping for and walked into my twenties satisfied.
While on trail I discovered another feeling. A fellow hiker, Tommy Corey (@twerkinthedirt) liked to photograph hikers in all their grungy, smelly glory like they were graceful models on the cover of Vogue. There was something about the juxtaposition of their dirty Patagonia-wearing legs and their modelesque expressions that captured how I felt out there: disgusting and beautiful in equal measure. And that was the moment I fell in love with photography.
Fast forward, years later, I’ve now settled down. I have a cat, Darla, and many houseplants, but no broccoli plants, yet. All that adventurous spirit of my youth has decamped from travel to art. I got my degree in photography and dipped my hungry little tentacles into many pools of visual media. I’m still pulling at strings, exploring and learning, and I haven’t quite found my little nook within the great world of art just yet. I’m searching for that feeling, again, just like I did with travel in my twenties. But perhaps that’s what makes us all artists at heart—the search for something that feels just right.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In the context of the entire planet, yes, it’s been very smooth. I live a privileged life, with loving, supportive parents, in a first-world country with accessible upward mobility, and in a time where living alone with my cat won’t get me burnt at the stake. Nonetheless, I have run into my own obstacles. The three-headed horseman of becoming a full-time artist being: Time, Money, and Exhaustion.
To be honest, and a surprise to no artist I’m sure, the biggest obstacle has been my own doubt. I got very close this last year in landing an interview with a very large, chic, and magnificent furniture design and manufacturing company here in Austin. It was my dream gig.
I went into that interview, sat down, and proceeded to have a full-blown panic attack. Over the sound of my blood pounding in my ears, I tried to answer the interviewer’s questions with all the confidence and self-assurance that had brought me that far. But man, in that moment, I just couldn’t find that person within me. I could see by the limp way my interviewer stood up at the end of the interview that I had bombed.
But! I made it through the interview, didn’t I? Everyone needs to bomb from time to time. And because I love myself, I will bomb again.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I love color, design, adventurous fashion, beautiful interior spaces, and the great outdoors. All of these loves commingle into my bright and playful photographic style. If you have a bar of soap, let’s say, and you want everyone to know that using that soap will make all your sassy diva dreams come true, then I am the photographer for you.
Thus far, the most exciting thing in photography has been having my photo on a real, tangible, hold-in-your-hand album for the midwestern punk band, Sweetmelk (@sweetmelk).
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Any choice you ever take is a risk, the risk of losing an alternative version of yourself and regretting it. We have to make choices every day that determine who we will be tomorrow and what our life will be like. It’s impossible to avoid.
Even if you’re too afraid to leave your home, and instead spend all your life consumed in media or a hobby that seemingly separates you from the world, even if that hiding feels safe and calm, it’s still a risk. Maybe even a bigger one than getting out there and living your life.
A risk may feel scary, or it may not, but it is always there. So, if you need to face the sensation of fear to get the life you want, why wouldn’t you? The risk is the same and fear is just a sensation that will pass through your body and be gone.
This viewpoint is personal for me, as in my early to mid-twenties I developed debilitating anxiety that prevented me from leaving my home. I was afraid of everything, the neighbors who brought me cookies, the sound of coyotes at night, my own reflection in the mirror. I had to face that fear by forcing myself to walk into it, and that’s how I became an adventure junky for a time. I wanted to know that my life wasn’t slipping away from me without making memories I would be proud of. I wanted to train myself to accept fear as just an emotion and not let it dictate my life. And I did, I do, most days, bombing interviews and all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.itsokdarla.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsokdarla
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherpoffenberger/
