Today we’d like to introduce you to Meredith Ochoa.
Hi Meredith, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I began my visual arts journey at 17 years old after being a ballerina for 14 years and battling recovery with an eating disorder while failing my way through high school. One day, a small voice told me, “draw, just draw”. I listened, and I could. I really could. I became fascinated with light and shadow in drawing & photography. I loved how you can only see the light because of the dark and vice versa. This contrast showed up not only in my art but in my life.
I started making my own pinhole cameras and skipping class to experiment in the darkroom. Imagine my surprise when I miraculously got a scholarship to SCAD (then another for my Master’s degree later on). When I got there, because of my darkroom roots, I was pretty upset about the digital ‘takeover’ within the photo world.
I decided to make a ‘mockery’ of digital photography–turning a scanner into a sort of ‘large format’ camera. This became an entire practice & technique within itself and became the scanning process that I am known for today. The subject becomes the “negative” through digital degradation with a portable wand of light. The portable scanner describes the subject through a life-size depiction of the number of pixels the subject amounts to. The subject becomes the “negative” describing the subject digitally with a flattened focal plane. These images create ‘totems’ of the subject, dialogue, and/or relationship they portray.
This artistic practice and journey served as the foundation of what would lead me to the discovery of my mission–to show others how to face their pain and see themselves for who they really are.
I further revealed this mission by facing my own debilitating pain every month living in hell with debilitating pain from Endometriosis for over 17 years.
I was told it was all in my head by multiple doctors, went through surgery, a series of birth controls, and have actually crossed over to the other side from the agonizing pain. There was one month the pain was so intense that I passed out and felt like I had died– I was completely powerless and felt complete surrender. After dying, I knew that I needed to start honoring & listening to my body, and could no longer hide or be embarrassed by it if I wanted to truly live. I realized I needed to see myself for who I really was and face all of the areas in my life where I had been inauthentic.
So in late 2019, I began to unravel all of the medical lies I had believed and educated myself on how women’s hormones actually worked and healed myself.
I learned through my experience that all healing starts with being authentic. I would come to realize later on that we can’t even recognize what it is that we really want until we experience the unwanted. That contrast gives birth to us feeling joy from our own desires.
As an artist, I was so empowered and inspired by this journey that in April 2021 I felt compelled to create a 13-year ongoing art series about it called Every Phase–powerfully illustrating how I healed myself living by the phases of the female cycle infradian rhythm clock. The accompanying art of each phase metaphorically illustrates the different brain and body chemistry of what’s occurring during that particular phase, so I am actually living the art. I have included a link to the series below: https://www.meredithochoa.com/every-phase
I also self-published this series as a printed art book with Augmented Reality (AR) interaction. This first book captures the first year and I have very appropriately titled it, Face Your Shit, Heal Yourself. Here is a brief video explaining the book and series: https://www.meredithochoa.com/face-your-shit-heal-yourself-book
In addition to the book, I have an accompanying podcast (same title as the book – Face your Shit, Heal Yourself) to help other women dealing with ‘chronic’ pain and hormonal imbalances by introducing some of the experts and practices that helped me achieve what I thought was impossible:
https://faceyourshithealyourself.captivate.fm/
What I learned through my experience is that through my art I am healed, and I heal others. All healing starts with being authentic, which is why I encourage others to face their pain.
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?
My 17 years of pain with endo have been anything but smooth, but it has fueled my mission.
Every 28 days, since around fourteen years old, I have had debilitating menstrual pain (up until about four years ago). I have crossed over to the other side and returned, I have woken up in pools of sweat and blood, and I have gone unconscious due to the shock from the writhing, knife-bending, piercing stabs of the cramps. I usually had to go to the emergency room when I could afford it. I have had surgery, been on multiple medications, birth controls, and consulted with countless doctors who have said it’s all in my head and told me to just have a baby and it will go away—all of the usual medical sales pitches that turned out to be completely false.
I know what hell looks like. I have visited it monthly—the prison of endometriosis. Until I realized that I held the key to that prison, unlocked the door, and healed myself. I healed a chronic condition with my mindset, diet, and lifestyle—what most Western doctors deemed “impossible,” I did anyway. I educated myself on how food impacts hormones, revealing what endo truly is, so I could see it clearly and then leverage my biology to transform it from my weakness to my power source. I have had the most generous and caring pelvic floor physical therapist, sex therapist, and powerful health reading material to guide and help me get where I am today. I will be forever grateful for them. However, my own willingness to look at the inconvenient truths is what helped me find the person I really needed to get me through it all: myself.
I am thankful to all of the doctors who called me crazy because of their own lack of knowledge. I am thankful for my sexual abuse and trauma. It isn’t until you actually become grateful for something that you truly have power over it. They really are the compressed coals that have become gems in my crown. If I did have the doctors’ help, I would have been denied the absolute privilege to discover this power on my own. And I wouldn’t be starting this series. In no way am I diminishing the pain of what I have gone through, but rather celebrating the makings of the absolute empowerment I have now because of my willingness to face my pain.
True freedom is not given; it is discovered and claimed. It is a choice. It’s the kind no one can take away from you because it’s completely yours. It’s only in hindsight that we realize all of those seemingly inconvenient things are actually benefiting us if we let them. I realized that nothing happens that doesn’t benefit me. It’s not a lie you tell yourself, but an available awareness and reality. I kept the desire, and I gave up the struggle. My wish is for this freedom to spread to all women dealing with endo.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m most known for being a photographic renegade: Challenging what a camera is and really how photography functions in our lives.
The scanography process I invented at SCAD that I elaborated on in the story of my beginning as an artist, illustrates this idea.
It started out of my frustration with the industry moving towards digitization and ended up being one of the most unpredictable and freeing processes I’ve worked in. I wanted the subject to “become” the negative, which related to my early teachings of photography as the simple scientific and artistic combination of two things: light and time.
https://www.meredithochoa.com/becoming-the-negative-scanography-work
My real masterpiece is my current ongoing ‘Every Phase’ series about how I healed myself from endometriosis, and it will span 13 years. Currently, I’m in year 3 with 1 augmented reality book so far (Face Your Shit Heal Yourself captures the 1st year) and a podcast. I am releasing limited edition ‘bite-size’ acrylic art block collectibles (extremely affordable at $50/piece) of all the images so at the end of 13 years; the entire collection can be enjoyed as a whole without completely taking over someone’s house.
View the collectibles here: https://www.meredithochoa.com/every-phase-minis
I have a saying I repeat in my business and it is the inspiration behind all of my services, but specifically my new Photo Curation/Image Management Service:
Photography Affords Immortality.
Time is the most we can give to anyone or anything because we can never get it back.
By having an experience created or documented, we memorialize that in time. While we can’t go back in time, our minds can take us back to what really matters in life—all of the things that cannot be bought: relationships, emotion, passion, and connectedness. With my help, photos will be backed up safely, syncing and sharing systems will be created, and what was once lost or damaged, can be enjoyed as art.
This + all of the services I offer are listed below: https://www.anotherfingartist.com/services
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was very into astrology, ballet & writing plays/performances. I was also a big reader. I didn’t start getting into visual art until I was around 17 years old.
Pricing:
- $50 bite size limited edition art
- $50/hr teaching
- $100/hr photo management services
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.meredithochoa.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meredithwochoa/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anotherfingartist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithochoa/
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AnEffinArtist
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@anotherfingartist
- Other: https://www.anotherfingartist.com/services
Image Credits
Image Credit for the AR (woman scanning with her phone) image: Austin Gill Photo
