Impressions:  Cape Cod
I have always found solace and a spiritual home in nature.  During COVID, I began to really treasure the gift of natural beauty around me during my solo wanderings with camera.

I spend significant time on Cape Cod and particularly cherish the serenity and promise of the early morning light on its shores, ponds, forests and rivers. In this body of work, I utilized intentional camera movement (ICM) and  the blending of multiple  photos to create my personal vision of these landscapes– fleeting and fragile, peaceful and inviting.

The Architect called Light
My project is to explore the idea of Light as an architect, the creator of forms and spaces. American architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974) sensed “Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What is made by Light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.”

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University was designed in 1962 by Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier (1887-1965), a pioneer of modern architecture.   It is Light, however, that molds the raw concrete building material into beautiful lines and forms.  It is Light that defines the strength of the columns that effortlessly lift the geometric volumes of studio space up off the street level.  And it is Light that leads me inward to a seat of stillness.  My photographic techniques are single and multiple exposures, black and white filters and color shifts offered by the Fuji X4 camera, Lightroom and Photoshop.

For one week every summer, my family rents a small cabin overlooking the harbor in Wellfleet, MA. The “little house” came to us as a prize at a preschool auction. Twenty years later, it is entwined with my memory of summer, children growing up, and friends gathering.

As a photographer, I focus on portraits and how personal narratives reveal our common human experience. As I tried to capture the “little house,” I realized that these portraits of small details capture my own narrative. A jar of mismatched forks, a chair by an open window, towels drying on the clothesline; in these tableaus, unchanged over many years, I see myself, my family, and my friends.

 

Illusions (Landscape)
While our eyes may tell us one thing, our analytical brain often can’t quite figure what we are seeing. Something just doesn’t make sense. What we see and what we perceive and interpret may not be the physical reality.

The series Illusions (Landscape) plays with our visual perception. The images remind of landscapes, but on closer examination, something is off. What is that texture? The colors aren’t quite right. Photographs of two-dimensional flat concrete surfaces can be perceived as three-dimensional landscapes. In the changing light of day, colors and shadows emerge, reminding of dawn and dusk, imagined rivers, shadowed trees reflected in lakes, insects rising to the sky.

Perceptual ambiguity reflects ambiguity in life.

Ephemeral Abstractions
In this year of the pandemic, we were forced to stay inside and look inward, often in solitude. Our daily routines and habits were upended. Physical and virtual realities merged. Time itself seemed to change.

In this project I experimented with ephemeral elements in nature to create abstract images meant to ask myself questions regarding the perception of time and place. The objects I chose to photograph – ice, frost, spider webs, milkweed pods – all are perceived to be impermanent. I found everything close to home and yet they managed to transport me to imaginary landscapes far away.

I use symmetry as a way to convey change and transformation. Capturing these fleeting moments allowed me to appreciate the beauty of impermanence at my own pace.

Grace Notes

Up to three months ago my photography usually focused on creating a story in a Todd Hido-type atmospheric scene or a Suzanne Revy-inspired childhood moment. I strove to capture the right angle, the best lighting, the spontaneous moment. But Covid’s Stay-at Home orders in March dramatically curtailed travel and opportunities for human interaction.

The virus has brought much sadness but also renewed moments of gratitude. Bringing my camera on daily walks, I began noticing new details: the way the rain highlighted muted tree limbs and flower petals on wet pavement, the reflection of morning light on a shiny blue truck, a colorful window display, a beam of sunlight on a glass bowl and a mixture that looked like the virus itself.

I began seeing small details I had not noticed: patterns, reflections and unusual configurations. I moved in closer with my camera wondering how the unique and tiny details in a photo would alter when filling a frame. Putting them together in diptychs and triptychs connecting images which themselves might be a bit plain was another step. Seeing flow, movement, light and color, some beautiful, some disturbing, so much like these times we are living. I hope you can discover your own feelings in them.

 

Liminal

Inspired by the mythical quality of Hiromi Kakimoto’s images, this series explores the complicated layers of subconscious emotion. I am interested in devising a story that lives on the edge of what is real and what I imagine. Buried as memories or dreams, this work is a bridge between my conscious mind and a subliminal world.

These arbitrary mental hiccups dance between the delicate intimacy of despair and joy, anguish and elation. The images lack a specific narrative as they leap from one to the next. Memories rise to the surface and make connections between disparate ideas – relevant to the moments in time into which they intrude only through a familiar smell, sound, taste, color, touch.

These are the stories we often tell ourselves. A constructed narrative based on the interpretation of facts as only we see them. Not false. But not entirely true.

Paper Playroom

When the coronavirus arrived in the Boston area, my toddler Moxie and I began spending our days at home together. One afternoon, we painted with washable paints and cheap printer paper, which crumpled as it dried. Looking at the peaks and valleys, illuminated by the sunlight streaming into the playroom, I was inspired to create sculptures out of ordinary paper products. I set these sculptures by a window and revisited them throughout the day to photograph while Moxie ate her snacks, napped, or played on the floor.

Paper has turned out to be an ideal medium. It is readily available and nontoxic. It is not fragile; these sculptures can fall on the floor and be picked up again. And it is recyclable and biodegradable, pluses for me as an environmentalist.

Over time, my passion for the paper sculptures has grown. They take on lives of their own, forming surprising shapes and becoming lively creatures. Just as Moxie has found wonder in simple toys, I have found joy in twisting, folding, and photographing paper. She and I, each in our own ways, have turned the confines of our home into a place of imagination and growth.

Fish Market

For Italians, food is the opera of life. It is important to use the best local ingredients. It’s important to think about it, talk about it, dream about it, dwell on minuscule details of the preparation and to finally sit down with family and friends to partake in the communal meal.  In Italy the preparation and enjoyment of good food is the metronome for life.

In these photographs of the Catania Fish Market (La Pescheria) in Sicily I portray the opening beat. For me the first photo depicts the first operatic scene where all the players are preparing to break out in song.  From there the drama unfolds. In this early morning ritual, fishmongers hustle to attract potential buyers (mostly men) with calls and hand gestures. Tables are laden with every creature of the sea meticulously arranged to convey its ultimate freshness. The buyers partake in an animated ritual of talking, joking, smelling and hand movements all aimed at securing the finest and freshest item at the lowest price.