Wendy Fitch

RS: In what ways have you experienced touch, or how has touch changed for you through the pandemic?
WF: I've been incredibly grateful for my partner throughout this pandemic because without him I would've had very little touch and very little human contact at all during this time. We moved to Austin right as the pandemic was starting, so I had left most of my support system behind- but we had each other. I'm a pretty introverted and not a touchy-feely person, but the last year+ has definitely made me miss my friends and family even more, and realize how much I value community, hugs, and sharing space with loved ones.


RS: How do you define and or understand resilience as it relates to owning an identity that is marginalized?
WF: To me, resilience is insisting that the way I think and feel is valid when our culture constantly seems to deny that, and rising above my own internal critic to accept that my best is good enough. I will never deny being privileged, as an educated, middle-class-raised, mostly straight, white person. But, despite that, throughout my life I've struggled to navigate the mainstream heteronormative world for a lot of reasons. Some of the more easily defined reasons are: being on the autism spectrum and struggling with social anxiety and depression partially because of it, not understanding or identifying with what it means to be "female" a lot of the time, and having a deep connection with the natural world and a sense that the modern western settler-colonialist lifestyle is just not right. Okay, maybe that last one wasn't so easily defined but there you have it.


RS: How does Austin play a role in your experience of touch and or resiliency?
WF: Since I moved here right as the pandemic was starting (my partner is from Texas and a lot of his family lives here), for me this city represents new beginnings and overcoming obstacles. Starting over somewhere new is always hard, but amidst a pandemic- that's a whole other level.


RS: What was your experience in creating your skin prints? 
WF: As a more cerebral person, it was interesting and grounding to relate to my body in that way. I don't usually think about the stories my body has to tell, and this gave me a chance to do that.


RS: Where on your body did you choose to create your prints from? Why were/are these spots important to you? 
WF: I chose my thigh, where I have a tattoo of an ouroboros (the snake eating its tail), and a scar on my shoulder. The ouroboros was tattooed by my partner and it was his first tattoo with a tattoo machine, so the skin is scarred and raised in a way that I thought would show up nicely on the print. The symbol of the snake eating its tail is very important to me- a reminder of the cyclicality of life and death, and the way of nature. This tattoo also marks the time in my life when I chose a loving partner with a healthy lifestyle, after getting out of some pretty damaging relationships.

The scar on my shoulder came from a time when I was younger and more carefree (or maybe dumber). I got it from crawling through a chainlink fence to get to an abandoned warehouse for a photoshoot. At the time I was living an working at and small farm in the middle of central Washington (in the actual middle of nowhere), and I met a photographer online and agreed to go do this photoshoot one evening- without my own car and with nothing to protect myself but a small switchblade, in case he turned out to be a creep. Luckily he was cool, but I used to put myself at risk all the time by trusting people without good cause, and I consider this scar a reminder of how that kind of thing can go wrong.