New York based photographer, Nailah Fuller has been working on her series Little Black Book since 2013. The work is a layering of nude self-portraiture and Nailah’s journal entries. A new LBB is created every two to three years. The experience of keeping a journal is sacred for Nailah and important to her artistic practice in that it is cathartic.
What is most enjoyable to me about the work other than the beauty of the images is how vulnerable it is. Sharing a personal journal is not an easy thing. I appreciate how there are some journal entries included that the viewer can easily relate to and others that are much more mysterious. It’s also compelling, the text or sketching that we do see. The content ranges from poems, to shopping lists, to daily observations.
In the process Nailah describes, the journal entries are written two to three years prior with self-portraits from the current year. It unintentionally symbolizes growth and change in her life, while the merging of prior journal entries keeps a reminder of the last few years. She takes self-portraits before looking back at a journal and deciding which entries will be scanned. Nailah describes what she calls, maintaining the “now” and how it is extremely important to her when journaling.
Above all else, making this on-going work is liberating for Nailah who hopes to inspire others to be true to themselves, to spend time learning about who they are, and to journal.