🧭 About Marie

I’m a photographer, writer, and systems-oriented observer of human behavior. Most of my work now centers on documenting the world as it is: people, places, animals, and the internal landscapes we rarely name out loud. I think in structures. I care about clarity. And I use my work to make the implicit visible.

🌱 Where I Come From

I grew up in a string of white, Midwest, Christian institutions (conservative Lutheran schools, evangelical churches, and missionary programs) where identity was defined by obedience, performance, and belonging to a single worldview. Those environments shaped how I understand systems, culture, power, and the ways people adapt to survive.

My adult life has been defined by the slow, deliberate process of untangling that framework and rebuilding my own.

🧠 Rebuilding a Self

Losing the religious meaning system I was raised in required constructing a new one from the ground up. Over the past decade, I’ve reorganized my worldview around epistemic integrity, emotional literacy, and grounded reality. My daily writing (published conversations with ChatGPT) is part of that ongoing work. It’s where I think out loud, name patterns, and tell the truth about how humans develop inside systems they never chose.

📷 What I Do Now

Photography:
I photograph people, events, and everyday life. My work focuses on authenticity over performance: the small moments that reveal how someone is actually oriented in the world. I also volunteer as a photographer in my local community.

Writing:
I publish a daily blog documenting my epistemic conversations with ChatGPT. It’s part journal, part analysis, part reconstruction project.

Coaching (Lightly):
I occasionally offer grounded, non-performative coaching for people who want clarity, not cheerleading. It’s pragmatic, structured, and rooted in reality, not maternal or motivational.

Community:
I also run a TikTok account where I film short videos of me walking shelter dogs from Minneapolis Animal Care & Control. It’s simple, grounding, and part of how I stay connected to the world outside my head.

🧭 What This Site Is For

This website houses my photography portfolio, my writing, my past professional work, and the projects that shape my life now. It’s an archive, a workspace, and a record of the ongoing process of becoming a real adult with a self-authored life.