Francesca Woodman jumped to her death from the window of a Lower East Side Manhattan loft on January 19th 1981. She was 22 years old when she died. 

This was her last Journal entry:

This action that I foresee has nothing to do with melodrama. It is that life as lived by me now is a series of exceptions … I was (am?) not unique but special. This is why I was an artist … I was inventing a language for people to see the everyday things that I also see … and show them something different … Nothing to do with not being able “to take it” in the big city or w/ self doubt or because my heart is gone. And not to teach people a lesson. Simply the other side.

Photograph: Space2 (1976)

I got lost in the night, without the light
of your eyelids, and when the night surrounded me
I was born again: I was the owner of my own darkness.

Pablo Neruda

“I have nothing but respect for people who travel the world to make art and put exotic Indians in front of linen backdrops, but it’s always been my philosophy to try to make art out of the everyday and ordinary.” - Sally Mann

❝ This is why dreams can be dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does and sometimes consume us completely.

❝ I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on Earth. Then I ask myself the same question.

❝ Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.

❝ As an artist, I see beauty in random things.

❝ ‎Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. When you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you put water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you put water in a teacup, it becomes the teacup. Water can flow, water can crash. Be water, my friend.

❝ If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life.

❝ Must love decorating for the holidays, mischief, kissing in cars, and wind chimes. No specific height, weight, hair color, or political affiliation required but would prefer a warm spirited non racist, cynics, critics, pessimists, and “stick in the muds” need not apply. Voluptuous figures are a plus. Any similarity in look, mind set, or fashion sense to Mary Poppins, Claire Huxtable, Snow White, or Elvira Wholeheartedly are welcomed. I am dubious of actresses, fellons and lesbians but dont want to rule them out entirely. Must be tolerant of whistling, tickle torture, James Taylor, and sleeping late. I have a slight limp, eerily soft hands, and a preternatural love of autumn. I once misinterpreted being called a coal-eyed dandy as a compliment when it was intended as an insult. I wiggle my feet in my sleep, am scared of the dark, and think the Muppets Christmas Carol is one of the greatest films of all time. All I want is butterfly kisses in the morning, peanut butter sandwiches shaped like a heart, and to make you smile until it hurts.

❝ The world only exists in your eyes…You can make it as big or as small as you want.

❝ Sometimes the wrong train can take us to the right place.

❝ Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.