Statement of Practice

Using the tools of visual culture, I employ photography and other printed materials to decode and communicate messages and stories. My creative practice is focused largely on what happens after an image has been committed to film or pixels, although I photograph extensively, trying to contain the magic of light, these tiny moments are captured into a small hole through which they becom spiritual and historical relics.

I was first drawn to photography by the works of the FSA cohort (Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, especially), Weegee, Gordon Parks, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, and others who work in a documentary style and/or portraiture. Photography’s ability to capture the personality of a place or person, and to build worlds. I possess an insatiable curiosity about people and places. Much of my own photographic work goes straight to the archive before being rediscovered. These stories or fragments I have managed to contain through the camera’s lens do not exist in a vacuum; they are part of a larger arc that asks to be experienced and remembered.

I have used written words, collage, paint, wax, bookmaking, assemblage, video, and drawing to make these narrative connections. Sources include my own archives, new photography, historical written and pictorial archives, maps, books, mass media, and pop culture.

The visual yarns I spin are essentially about people and their places: what makes people tick and how do their environments contribute to and reflect these values? Ultimately, I hope to amplify lesser-heard voices and show people truths they may not yet have processed. I also want to allow people to feel what I feel when I see something that moves me. My central question is: how can I translate a feeling of connectedness and awe at the light that illuminates the world? Sure, this should be easy.