Screen Houses of Plymouth County

Plymouth, Massachusetts is celebrated as the site of the Pilgrims Landing in 1620 along with its Cape Cod Bay coastline and protected harbor that attracted these first settlers to the this location.

When flying over the Plymouth area in the fall, one can’t miss the mosaic landscape below dominated by large patches of magenta. These are the cranberry bogs of southeastern Massachusetts. The cranberry – the indigenous plant that has thrived in this landscape since before the Pilgrims arrived – dominates the low lying terrain of peat and sand bogs surrounded and protected by pitch pine and scrub oak uplands.

Often hidden from view along the byways of the cranberry bogs, I discovered several unique barns. I learned these were over 100 year old  “screen houses” whose purpose was to sort the berries before the advent of today’s automated harvesting. The dominate feature in the various structures was a bank of windows designed so that each sorter had maximum light available for the task.

Some of the screen houses that survive today have found other purposes, and some have been neglected or vandalized. These  photographs document these unique structures in their surrounding bogs and uplands before they totally fade from the landscape. Inspired by an 1880’s painting “The Cranberry Harvest” by Eastman Johnson, these photographs capture the spirit of the era in which the screen houses were used for their original purpose of sorting the berries of the annual harvest.

Early Light

I save things “just in case”, and so began this project with a collection of scraps of paper and early morning light. Landscape photographers chase the light outside; I chased the light that came into my house through widows and doorways. During this project, I became a student of light, shadows and time.

I had to work quickly to catch the light. I cut, folded, and curled pieces of black and white paper and placed them in the light to see what shapes and patterns would emerge. I was surprised that the shadows made with black and white paper changed so much on different backgrounds. I experimented to see how many different shadows I could make with one piece of paper.

As the light came into my house, I moved as it moved until I ran into walls and ran out of light. I realized that while I was chasing the light, I was also chasing time.

Industrial Grace

In this series of images I explore the form and details of machines that were built during the Industrial Revolution and are on display at the Charles River Museum of Innovation in Waltham and at the Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill.

I was initially drawn to these machines because of their historical significance but as I spent quiet afternoons studying them I came to appreciate their dignified beauty. Beneath the rust and oil these cold utilitarian machines have color and grace.

Puerta Vallarta Colors

For years I’ve had a love affair with Mexico. The vernacular architecture, the food, and the music might be enough – but I think it’s the welcoming nature and quiet optimism of the Mexican culture – that calls me back. I see this culture reflected in the colors chosen to embellish the simplest of elements – the buildings, at eye level.

Puerta Vallarta Colors was shot over three days in this once sleepy fishing port, that is becoming a busy tourist destination. But the old stone, stucco, and cement surfaces remain, often adorned with aged hardware and utilities – and they are constantly refreshed with new paint in a celebratory palette. To me, these colors communicate the spirit of the Mexican culture.

Resilience

The Scranton Lace Company was established in 1890 and was the largest producer of Nottingham lace in the United States from 1916 to 2002. The factory is a sprawling complex of buildings. Even the remnants are notable today. Over time weathering has stripped away the surfaces, highlighting strengths, exposing weaknesses, and creating texture. My interest goes beyond the aged colors and patterns. I’m interested in the stories implicit in the remnants of the buildings. How did the company fit into the community? What is left behind to remind us of those who worked there?

Invented Inventory

I have photographed my children for years, fascinated by their growth and our evolution as a family. Last fall my youngest left for college. My newly emptied nest was both a gift and a challenge. Suddenly I had more time to devote to my own pursuits, but the silence and solitude made it harder to ignore the chatter that populates my head.  While some of the voices were encouraging, the loudest ones were not. I found myself wondering how my children had grown up while I still had so much to figure out about myself.

Invented Inventory is a series of self-portraits cataloguing the thoughts, feelings, and attributes I’ve uncovered at this crossroads. Each image is a physical manifestation of some facet of my exploration. By painting, sewing, collecting and constructing all of the elements of the final image, I create a work that is uniquely mine and mine to determine. This control stands in contrast to the vulnerability I feel standing in front of the camera. Ultimately, it’s the balance between the two that interests me most.

Siren Song

“Siren Song” centres on the desert landscape of California’s Salton Sea – a place where life barely whispers. In this work, I focus on the materiality of the landscape and the vestiges of its inhabitants – remains that give a sense of the past. In many ways, Siren Song is more about the people – and their absence – than about the land.

Almost frozen in time, the Salton Sea feels silent and empty. Sparseness, open terrain, the desert’s horizon, and the distant mountains define this world and pull me in. The artifacts of everyday life, embedded in the desolate aesthetics of the landscape, compel me and help draw a connection to the history of this arid environment.

Rather than tell a linear story Siren Song is a reflection of my emotional connection to and understanding of the Salton Sea.

Afterglow

This project began last autumn as the season was waning and winter was settling in. Diminishing daylight and colder days led me to turn inward and reflect.

The resulting photographs are a metaphor for the fluidity of relationships and the shifting stages of life. Decisions must be made, opportunities can be lost, but time isn’t always linear, and we come back to where we were.

I use form and content to reveal and conceal the emotions and transitions of the past and future: the gentleness of lingering light; a shadow kissing a house; the velvet caress of a flower; or an awakening breeze.

Although these portraits and images are personal, it is my intention that they offer a path to feelings and experiences that are universal in nature.

Projections

Many photographers talk about capturing light, although some would argue that light is, instead, just one of the tools that we use to craft our images. For these images, light was a voice, one that called to me as I walked down the street, or when I woke too early and went stumbling around an almost-dark house. The light told me to look, and where to look, but left it to me to come to an understanding of how much of the way I see the world is through the lens of the legacy of my childhood as a much-younger brother in a less-than nuclear family.

Sea Change

As I prepare to leave the New England shore, I feel an urgent need to study what will soon be out of easy sight – the northern seaside. In this project I capture the varied ways the ocean transforms in response to weather, it’s relentless fingering of the shore and worrying of stones, and it’s mingling with the sky, day to day. Sky, sea, and rocky earth. The tossing stones crackle with the change.