As we enter a new year and look to the future, it’s important to reflect on the milestones in our lives over the last 12 months. Here, our favourite image-makers paint a picture of their year and share the moments they most cherished. This is Olivia Bee’s year in photos.
January
New Years, 2017. I stay in Portland, my hometown, for the first days of 2017. We hold a house show at Anna’s, continuing into the wee hours of the nascent year. Vomit is shed, regretful sex is had, secrets are spilled, it is a mess… but there are quiet beautiful moments birthed in these mornings.
February
Christmas Lights Upon the Water, 2017. I spend most of February sleeping in a car in Arizona or soaking in hot springs in New Mexico. We sleep in the water.
March
Highway 40, 2017. My father and I drive ourselves and all of my things across the country, New York to Los Angeles. It is a utilitarian roadtrip; four days, twenty-eight hundred miles. Decaying America dances out the window of the U-haul for forty-one hours.
April
Twenty-Three, 2017. Settling into the west coast again feels natural, feels like I am waking up. I turn twenty-three and finally feel like I’m settling into myself.
May
Hunter and Yahtzee in Oakland, 2017. All of May seems to be spent in my car driving up and down California, learning about the spring that is really summer.
June
Taos Rodeo, 2017. I go back to New Mexico to ride and to taste the Southwest.
July
Fielder, 2017. We camp in the back of my car in the back hills of the San Bernardino mountains, making songs in the fading light.
August
Wildflower Reminders, 2017. I drive up to Montana from Los Angeles alone in my car that is too old for that shit. At Yellowstone National Park I pick up hitchhiking kids from South America and the car is full again. They want to see Olde Faithful so I drop them off and call my therapist in the parking lot. When we are finished, with flushed half happy half sad tear stained cheeks, I lie in the middle of the wildflowers, just listening.
September
Sunrise Soak, 2017. Molly and I drive to the hot springs in northern California. In the sunrise I lie naked in a hot stream, feeling moved by the dwindling stars. Being so affected moves me further, because I remember (or maybe realise) that I do, in fact, belong here.
October
Halloween, 2017. I am in France for Halloween, and dressed up like Jackie Kennedy. We go to a beautiful, sloppy party in a castle outside of Paris. We dance in the dungeon.
November
Chantal (Warm), 2017. We all go out to the desert for Aaron’s birthday and Thanksgiving. I have had a hellish week and become surrounded by people I love who are also in love with each other. Bittersweet, but warm.
December
December First (Jemez Mountains), 2017. I am in New Mexico on my dead sister’s birthday, making new traditions. I write a letter to her and burn it, sending the ashes down the Jemez River. Hiking alone, exhaling big, finding gentle strength in a heavy day. Lightness is found in the dusk, and so is hope.