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Shayna Fowler

@shayna_fowler

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Brooklyn, NY

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A surprise table scape for turning thirty: two-toned chrysanthemums, handwritten place cards (“the ones that made the cut”), the polyphonic laughter of a dozen people I adore from high school and therapy camp and my first real job and recent move back to Brooklyn and a guided ayahuasca ceremony in the Hills and from before, in the ether.

A backyard garden in early June. We eat cast iron chicken and the mosquitos eat our ankles. Everyone feasts. The streets are strangely empty because the Knicks are playing the Spurs and half of this table is Texan, though only a few of them claim it. All our eyes and teeth are glittering. Silverware’s tinking. I’m so happy it kind of hurts.

The cake comes and someone jokingly chants “speech” but all I can do is whisper “thank you” because what else is there to say except I love you and I’m so grateful for all the ways we’ve held each other and thank God it’s a new decade because the last one was absurd and mired with meaning and my mom died two months after I turned twenty but here I am turning thirty, drinking more Light than wine. taken in Vinegar Hill House by @shayna_fowler

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68

a month ago

Unbounded by the temporal realm or whatever because what even is time??? by @shayna_fowler

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17

7 months ago

Our short film, Spelling Test, is officially out in the world. It’s a miracle to me that anything gets made. Please watch it before my Vimeo trial expires.

For Mom & Dad — everything, always.

⁣Written & Directed by Shayna Fowler ⠀
Produced by Janna Cabello & Sarah Hughes⠀
Director of Photography Rick Camacho⠀
Original Score & Sound Design by Alice Otieno & Janna Cabello⠀
Edited by Alex Camacho⠀
Art Direction by Misha Tahir⠀
⠀
CAST⠀
Jade – Aria Green⠀
Dad – John Karna⠀
Mom – Emily Mahon⠀
Jordan – Makenna Tingler⠀
Grandma – Karen Laven⠀
Pap – Doug Laven⠀
Adrianna – Kate Kupec⠀
Mrs. Bolton – Krista Scheetz⠀
Parent – Parker Castillo⠀
Extras – Coulter Smith, Wilma-Rue Tolka, Cori Newland, Lydia Tingler, Rickey Rovito, Caia Colmon, Atlas Caudill, Emiliia Zelenevych⠀
⠀
CAMERA & ELECTRICAL⠀
Director of Photography – Rick Camacho⠀
Colorist – Jonathan Marzolla⠀
Camera Operator – Emily Hughes⠀
Assistant Camera (AC) – Gracie Becker⠀
Gaffer – Elijah Jimenez⠀
Key Grip – Reilly Schrock⠀
Grip & Gear – Thi Nguyen⠀
Grip – Jake Marzluf ⠀
Grip – Dustin White ⠀
Best Boy – James Gilson⠀
⠀
SOUND DEPARTMENT⠀
Sound Mixer – Caleb Faizi ⠀
Boom Operator – Caleb Jewell⠀
Sound Editor – Micah Tewers⠀
⠀
ART DEPARTMENT⠀
Styling & Title Design – Misha Tahir⠀
HMU – Raegan Fowler⠀
HMU Assist – Emma Stoops⠀
HMU Assist – Amie Reithmiller⠀
⠀
SCRIPT & DIRECTION SUPPORT⠀
Assistant Director – Alex Camacho⠀
Script Supervisor – Olivia Clippinger⠀
⠀
PRODUCTION TEAM⠀
Line Producer – Sarah Hughes⠀
Production Assistant – Gary Fowler⠀
Production Assistant – Hannah Fowler⠀
Production Assistant – Parker Castillo⠀
⠀
BEHIND THE SCENES⠀
Behind-the-Scenes Camera – Misha Tahir & Ivy Beam⠀
⠀
SPECIAL THANKS⠀
Kathy Fowler⠀
Elizabeth Stephenson & Bo Berg⠀
North Broadway United Methodist Church⠀
C3 Church⠀
Auntie Flew⠀
⠀ by @shayna_fowler

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32

a year ago

Turned 29 at Coney Island and then promptly took my grandma to Maine. Saturn return, baby !!! taken in Bar Harbor, Maine by @shayna_fowler

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11

a year ago

More love than any of us know what to do with. Also, call me <3 by @shayna_fowler

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16

2 years ago

Found negatives from a small box of my mom’s keepsakes I’ve had for the last 8 years. She left them carefully wrapped in plastic. The scans came just before we shot the first short film I’ve ever written & directed, which happens to be a love letter to this little family who was until it wasn’t. We celebrated and grieved and reminisced and cried (dad) (shayna) (shayna again). I really love them. by @shayna_fowler

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2 years ago

Let the record show that one month in Europe was just enough time to see the sights *and* fight all my inner demons by @shayna_fowler

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27

2 years ago

From August in Albuquerque with 81-year-old Franciscan friar, Father Richard Rohr.

Time with him was healing, & a sacred reminder that “people who have had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.”

Carrying this with me. I owe you one @carlsonyoung. Thanks for letting me follow you around 🤍 taken in Albuquerque, New Mexico by @shayna_fowler

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9

2 years ago

I moved states again. Have a lot to learn about patience and stillness and betting on myself, but also I can feel things shifting and I am impossibly lucky to love these particular people and if you haven’t watched Bottoms or listened to Calico or read Chain Gang All Stars yet I am telling you !!!!! by @shayna_fowler

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29

3 years ago

Read the Alchemist, figured out the meaning of life, etc etc 🦋 taken in Brooklyn, New York by @shayna_fowler

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10

4 years ago

July August September October November by @shayna_fowler

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13

5 years ago

This is a photo of my mother taking a photo when she was fourteen. Today is her forty-eighth birthday.

Occasionally I let myself imagine how she would age. Laugh lines? Graying hair? Wells of self-assurance? Would she embrace or resent what we once believed was the inevitability of growing older?

Other days it is too painful to entertain what will never be. She is close to me and far away at the same time and I don’t know what to make of that. I am paralyzed by the idea of forgetting her.

A friend sent me a newsletter this morning. Hidden in a larger narrative was the following excerpt.

“Our lived lives might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live,” wrote the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. “But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are.”

It’s true. There are at least one thousand lives she and I didn’t get to live. Somedays it feels like my personhood has been shaped more by the force of my mother’s death than the absolute miracle of her life. And then I find photos like this one—proof that she was here, paying attention, bearing witness to the world in a way only she could. Everything in me softens. Am I still getting to know her?

Happy forty-eighth birthday, mama. I am right here, paying attention, bearing witness to the miracles of your life and love in a way only I can. taken in Los Angeles, California by @shayna_fowler

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5 years ago