A year ago. How does one even survive their child growing up? Every day my heart breaks from growing out.

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It could come from a scribble of an idea — stick figures on the back of the insurance bill. Or a three word entry from the notes app. Or a lucky thought that knew just how to take up space.

I was asked by Atmos Magazine to illustrate an article on feminism in the wild, and how gender stereotypes defined and extended themselves into the research done on the animal kingdom. It is a fascinating article.

Here are the published images, some outtakes, and how they came to be.

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I am starting this series as a way to give some of this work away. A sort of landing pad for photographs beyond the algorithm. I am thankful for Instagram for many reasons — it has helped me make a living for years and it is an easy portfolio to keep up with, but I do feel that art is being pushed to its edges in favor of reels that will keep us scrolling and buying things.

So this audience has chosen itself, and for that I am grateful. My plan is to publish a group of pictures every season that are too precious for the rest of the internet for now. Giving work away helps me move on from it, lets the viewer take the image and create their own metaphor. It relieves me of some of the burden, and it makes space for something new. I often get requests from magazines for unpublished work, hoping to show something no one has ever seen before. But if you’ve chosen to be here, you get first dibs, and I’ll still consider these pictures unpublished (almost). Thank you so much for supporting my work. These are the first images from Secret Pictures.

xx Olivia Bee

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It’s been a long and windy road to get to who I am now: a mother, artist and agrarian. My real life is a mix of high and low, and the attraction for that magic distance in between that I can’t seem to shake. I can be found in the pig pen wearing Chanel earrings. I have accidentally taken sneakers covered in animal manure to Paris. I have gotten an ultrasound on the floor of our barn after our sows were preg checked. I will be on back to back phone calls with my agent, and then the butcher. I have sat helplessly on zoom with a celebrity watching our horses break into the yard and eat my hollyhocks (for the third year in a row). There is a story, which I will share here someday, where one of our pigs broke into the garage, and ate everything in a refrigerator, including part of the refrigerator. And then there’s the time 50 Cent took me to the candy shop and The Louvre.

(By the way this picture is framed when you exit the bathroom in our house)

I have found my life to be of quite The Range. So for cheaper than a bad matcha, you can subscribe to Range Finder, where I tell you all about it in the following series:

Secret Pictures: A paid seasonal series featuring images too precious for the rest of the internet.

Realized: A paid series exploring what really happens behind my camera. I dissect the images and share how they came to be.

As well as some fun freebies:

Postcards: Free public pictures sent to your inbox every once in a while (similar to my IG feed, but bigger!).

Olivia Beef: Free farm diary every once in a while. I promise the 800 lb hog x refrigerator story will show up here one of these days with visual evidence.

The Good The Bad & The Fugly: My free seasonal thrift round up. You don’t have to open this one lol. I can deal with my addiction on my own. But it would be cool if you enabled me too.

…And anything else I may find enticing, exciting, funny, annoying enough to share, and/or moving.

I would be delighted if you joined me!

Sending good vibes from the farm. I’m writing this, staying up late tonight because my toddler is going to wake me up anyway.

xx Olivia Bee

It’s summer and I have a toddler and the round bales go on forever.

Joe’s hay and assist, dress from my favorite vintage store, The Zoo.