MEET HARPER! aka @ophanims <3

interview by celeste moses

Hi Harper! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to fever dreams! I hope you’re doing well! Would you mind introducing yourself?

Hi! I’m Harper (she/her), 17, and will be a high school senior in the fall. I make text-based collage art about love & summer & anything good and clean. 

As I was looking into your art and writing I began to realize that your art has actually been a big staple in yee old Tumblr blog aesthetic haha! This was such a funny coincidence to me but also an eye-opener to the creative community of collage artists and online poets. How would you say this community has contributed to your craft?

Tumblr was the first place I posted any of my art, so it’s kind of untouchable to me. I wouldn’t have ever started sharing my work if it weren’t for the incredible community of people I found there. It’s kind of my dream social media, because essentially your blog is a diary/letter/moodboard of everything you have ever wanted to talk about. And having that bubble of young people sharing words and quotes that touched them helped me find my love for poetry and lyricism, and inspired me to develop my text-based style. 

Before we get any further, Taylor’s new album: Folklore… it is so apparent you have a keen sense for the best lyrics, do you have any favorite words from her new album?

I’ve filled up two pages with my favorite lyrics so this is an impossible question. But the bridge in august, “Back when we were still changing for the better / Wanting was enough / For me it was enough / To live for the hope of it all”, makes me levitate off the ground and light starts spilling out of my mouth. Also in this is me trying, “And it’s hard to be at a party when I feel like an open wound / It’s hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you”, … that part makes me want to burn my house down. 

Speaking of lyrics, your art is particularly refreshing in the sense of reminding onlookers the close relationship between poetry and music. What are some of your favorite songs that overlap between poetry/lyric?

I don’t think I could forgive myself if I didn’t use a Mitski song, I think I Will and Abbey have that driving feeling of reading a poem hurtling towards something, and both of their lyrics are just heart-wrenching. Also Werewolf by Fiona Apple (her voice has this perfect lilt to deliver the most devastating lines! Magic!), Presumably Dead Arm by Sidney Gish, and Cosmic Hero by Car Seat Headrest. 

In self-isolation, we are not strangers to distance. Is there anyone you’re missing right now? Or is it a feeling you’re missing?

I miss the closeness that used to be so simple. We used to hold hands and share drinks and touch each other just for the act of it, and that easy intimacy probably won’t be the same for a long time. And I miss grocery stores. They’re not the same anymore, they used to have this quiet loveliness and now it’s just just this desperate wasteland. 

So most of your journal spreads include a variety of mixed media (paints, pens, paper scraps, etc.), what is your go-to art process? Any favorite mediums?

I have a quote book that I go to first, full of lyrics, poems, and snippets that I felt moved enough to write down, and after picking a bit of text I rifle through my photo books and try to match the feeling of the text. The book stack has grown a gross amount during quarantine. It’s honestly kind of ridiculous how much Stuff I have accumulated in the name of collage. Right now some of my favorite materials to work with are fake blood and glitter glue; I feel like I can convey something so inherently emotional and messy with a splatter in the right place. 

Sleep is a restorative cycle, is your art a restorative cycle as well? Do dreams interrupt sleep? Do new ideas interrupt your creations?

Collaging and journaling is a healing thing for me. The windows open, Angel Olsen blaring, my hands covered in glue is when I’m at my absolute brightest. I think it’s because my journal is so personal to who I am, but it feels like breathing out, to take something (a feeling / a poem / a song) that touched me in some way and to get it onto the page. I think dreams can feel the same way. They’re not an interruption, they’re that deep breath out. Every face is a face you’ve seen before, every object in the dream state is supposed to have a real world connotation-- to me it feels like the mind's way of exhaling. You can remember things in dreams that every other part of you has forgotten. And new ideas aren’t a roadblock, they’re what usher me ahead. There’s always going to be a poem I haven’t read, a song out there that’s going to change my life someday. The constant stream of media and content can be exhausting, but I’m going to be privy to more love stories than some 17th century serf, so, sounds like a win to me. 

I heard through the grapevine that you’d been working on a book/collection of your poetry. Is this still true?

Yes! I’m working on a small collection of collage art and my original poetry, which is kind of thrilling because I don’t have the crutch of another person’s work to fall back on. I think zines by teen girls are the best art form though, I’m excited to contribute to the mix. 

Angels are rumored to take on non-human shapes, becoming beings of light and manifestation. Would you say your art is representative of you in this way? If not for a face and body what would you look like?

Being perceived is exhausting. I wish I could shove my journal into the hands of every person I meet so they could understand me, all of the glittery parts and ugly parts and parts where I spilled nail polish on the page. In my ideal form I’m a crush of purple light with little paper stars around where my eyes should be. A little fuzzy around the edges. 

Your journals and words are reminiscent of that bit of unkempt teenage girl flurry so many of us keep inside. The image of the teenage girl is often trivialized, what would you say to those who beg the question: DO teenage girls have substance?

Teenage girls are the world’s only hope. We build altars in our bedrooms and dig our nails into anything that makes us feel alive and take pictures of everything so we don’t miss a second of it. Being 17 and angry, 17 and restless, 17 and pretentious, feels like something I was born to do. At the root of it it’s typical girl-ache-- being so afraid that everyone around you is going to figure out the trick any second now. We’re told that Everything we do or like or say is embarrassing, which is exhausting. But in spite of that, I really don’t think there’s another group with as much compassion and resilience and raw talent. I want to be 17 forever, if that wasn’t obvious. 

How can we support your art?

I’m @ophanims on Instagram, @oozins on Tumblr, and you can buy prints of my work at https://society6.com/oozins !

Something you’d like to say to the world before you go?

Love will find you and it will save you! Romantic love / platonic love / familial love / love for being alive and everything around you!