Structure and Solitude 

Like a moth to flames, I find that I’m drawn to photographing abandoned structures. I’m not totally sure why, but I think the attraction comes from my speculations on what might have happened at these spots, on the stories that may have unfolded there. Additionally, I find solitude in the structures’ abandonment, and in today’s hustle and bustle, I find that solitude is a valuable commodity.

This collection of photographs represents my recent travels across the United States where I have looked for abandoned structures. Included in my hunting spots are: The Erie Canal, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Delaware Water Gap, and Shenandoah National Park.

It is my pleasure to share “Structure and Solitude” with you.

Botanical Portraits

The natural world—whether in the wild or near urban settings—is the focus of my photographic work. Photography connects me to the natural world in an intimate and immediate way and anchors me. I feel an emotional connection to the living things I photograph.

Wandering out of doors is an energizing and joyful endeavor for me, as is the making of photographs to share revelatory discoveries with others. I am personally motivated by the belief that the love and appreciation of our living planet can lead to the protection of its environment.

In these botanical photographs, I isolate a small piece of nature to reveal its uniqueness. They are visual descriptions, or portraits, that emphasize the special qualities of the subject through the details of color, texture, rhythm, and form, without distractions.  As “studies” depicting the individuality of particular varieties of plants, they enhance our appreciation of a striking world up close that might go unnoticed from a distance.

Chelmsford Noir

Chelmsford Noir is a nighttime photographic exploration of my current home town of Chelmsford, MA. With a nod to the milieu created by some of Edward Hopper’s work, I photograph familiar places—many of them quotidian subjects like the rear of commercial buildings and the windows of stores and houses—allowing the artificial light and stark shadows to present the familiar in literally a different light.

Seeing You, Seeing Me

Seeing You, Seeing Me is a photographic collaboration between my 21-year-old daughter, Leah, and me.  She is in front of the camera, while I stay behind it.  However, in our images we share the roles of observer and participant.  In these pictures, I see myself at her age while simultaneously imagining her as an adult: I also, see her seeing into the future while she observes me behind the lens in my new role as a photographer.

This project has allowed me to slow time with intent.  In front of the camera, I pose Leah along with personal artifacts and articles of mine.  In doing so, I image the traditions and morals that I have imbued in her.

Inspired by Dutch artists, particularly Vermeer, and books of my childhood such as Jane Eyre and Little Women, I attempt to create timeless and romanticized portraits that capture a fleeting and pivotal moment in time – the still of life as she stands on the cusp of adulthood.

More Than Words

My calling card is a camera, one that opens doors to the unexpected, revealing the magnificent characteristics of humanity. It brings me into ‘off main street’ small urban spaces, full of inherent beauty, and helps me start conversations that translate into a personal portrait of people’s surroundings and lives.

More Than Words is a series of photographs that invite the viewer into the conversation to discover and reinterpret their own idea of beauty and humanity.

In this, the first part of the project, my focus is on the gracefulness of spaces and structures in the southern New Hampshire towns where I live, work, and photograph.  As the project continues, it will grow from a conversation about sense of place to reframe itself as a photographic expression of the relationships I have formed with the people who, along with me, call these surroundings home.

Dust on Embroidery

Hesitation, then

I open the door

To greet not anymore

Remember the last time, you said

“This is the room where grandmother died

Now, I am here”

 

I am here now

And I see what you saw

Small things, hope in vain

Your dust on embroidery

Nothing is left

Only this moment

With the changing life

Shining on the table

Not Just Dirt: The Belmont Victory Gardens at Rock Meadow

I first encountered the Belmont Victory Gardens looking for a new walk with my family and dog. The idea of tightly packed, fenced community garden plots intrigues me – given I come from the world of large-scale farming, where fields are not measured in yards, but rather in unfenced miles. For me, the Gardens and their environs are a ‘micro’ landscape. They encourage me to take a more intimate look at our relationship to the land:  our tools, its seasons, our cultivation and its produce.

“A garden is a complex of aesthetic and plastic intentions; and the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant – rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance – but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself.”

Roberto Burle Marx, Landscape Architect and Artist

 

Visiting Impermanence

While photographing in Prince Edward Island, I was struck by a sign that read that the shoreline was disappearing at a rate of 1 meter per year. During that same trip, I was also struck by the thought that I am ephemeral and, like the landscape, will eventually disappear. This work explores the impermanence of both the seemingly permanent landscape and me, through long-exposure self-portraits set in areas that are experiencing high levels of erosion. My images are printed on vellum and I apply a gold leaf behind them. Through this process, I capture and present the value of the landscape and its permeability.

Surfaces / Abstraction

I use abstraction as a means to move beyond a conventional representation of mundane landscapes. Boston – its buildings and streets and the natural preserves nearby -provides me with endless opportunities to engage in visual conversations with the interplay of light, form, texture and color. The surfaces of my exploration include granite, concrete, metal, glass, water and wood, materials than can be hard or soft, rough or smooth, permanent or ephemeral. Seasons, weather and time of day all transform their appearance. Sometimes these surfaces reflect and become a mirror to Boston’s buildings, and other times they become a canvas for the intersection of planes, lines and blocks of color.

Abstracting the city frees me to see the environment in which I live and work in a fresh way, and make it an ongoing source of inspiration.

Barquito de Papel: we are not butterflies

My family has a long history of migration and I have always been interested in issues related to navigating borders. For years I have been photographing everyday physical borders that separate us from whatever is on the other side: walls, windows, screens as well as monumental borders like the ocean. In this experimental project I consider what it means to cross borders. These everyday borders serve as an intimate way to investigate the overwhelming issue of immigration, reminding us that the issue is a human issue rather than a merely political one. The view and experience that shape our perspectives differ on either side of any kind of border.

This installation combines shifting images of borders with barquitos de papel, paper boats, folded from paper printed with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the international community in 1989 and ratified by 196 countries (not including the United States). In this country, Immigration has always been a fraught issue. But immigration is not only an American issue, it is a human issue that impacts people across the globe in ways that can be lifesaving or devastating.

My daughter’s grandparents are exiles from Cuba on one side and Haiti on the other. On both sides the ocean has proved to be a magnificent border and some of my research has taken me to consider the beautiful and terrifying ways the ocean serves as both conduit, barrier and vessel. Since 2014 there have been 21,000 recorded deaths during migration (a necessarily low estimate), the majority of these are caused by drowning making the ocean a tomb as well.

The boats remind us of the vulnerability of migrant populations, particularly children and reference the barquitos in the children’s song:

Barquito de papel, mi amigo fiel, / Little paper boat, my faithful friend,
llevame a navegar por el ancho mar. / carry me away over the wide sea.
Quiero conocer a niños de aquí y allá / I want to meet children from here and there y a todos llevar mi flor de amistad. / and take them all my flower of friendship.
Abajo la guerra , arriba la paz / Down with war, up with peace.
Los niños queremos reir y cantar. / We children want to laugh and sing