High School

For the past 5 years, I’ve worked as a tutor at an urban high school in Boston. The building was constructed in 1928, at a time when exterior school architecture glorified education, with large windows and columns. Inside, long corridors, enclosed courtyards, and grated windows make the school feel more institutional.  The building seems unaffected by time, yet I am aware of the layers of history here: the turbulent path of desegregation and the transformation of Boston’s neighborhoods and schools to diverse immigrant communities.

My photographs contrast these architectural elements with the life of the school as it is today; many of the students are new to this city, and country. Today, the school’s diversity is recognized and celebrated.  Part of my work is reading and editing the seniors’ college essays. Many students reflect how their parents’ drive to face the challenges of coming to the US inspires and motivates them.

With few opportunities for arts learning within the school, student engagement has been a significant part of my process. Emulating a large format camera, I did all the shooting with a tripod and live view on the camera screen. My bright red tripod did not go unnoticed and students were interested to see and respond to the images while I worked. The series has been exhibited in the library and students contributed the image titles. As a springboard from this work, I will be running a photography seminar at the school, and going forward, I envision opportunities for the students to tell their own stories about this school and their lives.

Pattern Repeats

These photographs are inspired by the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the story, published in 1892, the protagonist sees a woman trapped inside her bedroom wallpaper, and the wallpaper becomes a metaphor for the social mores of the Victorian era. The narrator tears the wallpaper in an attempt to release the woman she sees crawling behind the pattern. In these photographs, modern young women are entrapped in a similar gilded cage. But in these images, the protagonists are behind — or encompassed by — the wallpaper. They are engulfed within pattern’s  repeats. Some are finding their voices, leaving these domestic walls for the greater world. They struggle to find their voice, envision the future: emerge.

An Evolving City

Boston is changing more rapidly than at any other time in the last century. Working at Boston’s planning and development review agency, I have a front seat to seeing these conversions; rapid growth causes strains in existing neighborhoods while simultaneously creating entirely new neighborhoods. An Evolving City provides a glimpse into these changes, juxtaposing what is being lost—auto shops, warehouses, and parking garages— with the uses, forms, and textures of new urban development.

Remembering

As a child I found refuge in nature and studied the small creatures that lived in the woods. As an adult, I collect small things that please my eye—a sand dollar, a dried flower, or tiny animal bones.  I use these objects as props in my photographs that I place into manufactured settings, projecting my own stories or concerns onto the scenes. After the initial image is taken, I bring together photography and digital drawing to create studies that blend object and environment together. Each image in this ongoing series is a quiet reference to past experiences; as I age, places, names and stories slip in and out of my memory.  I consider the question: If the details of my past fade permanently, then what do I become? These images are my way of remembering.

Capturing Grace

This series of photographs portrays a partnership between me, the photographer, and Mallika, a movement and visual artist. My interest in abstract shapes, lines and color intersects with her ability to move elegantly through those spaces, creating an additional dimension.

On a deeper level the work is about finding and forming an intergenerational friendship via artistic collaboration. Through our work and conversations we share a part of each other’s worlds and artistic aspirations.

Tensile Strength

Tensile Strength noun : the greatest longitudinal stress a substance can bear without tearing apart.

Over many years of tending to my garden, I have collected molted bird feathers. My collection now comprises a range of sizes, colors and patterns. I have experimented with different ways of using photography to capture their diversity, ultimately finding cyanotype printing as the most engaging way to portray these feathers. Why feathers? Because appearances can be deceiving. An object which appears tiny and delicate can turn out to be strong depending upon the stresses experienced. In my images, feathers represent a person’s inherent strength and the tension between what you show to others and your internal life. I leave it to you to find their tensile strength and your own.

Hometown

My hometown is like hot chocolate.  I think I was always happy drinking hot chocolate.  But I haven’t had it in a very long time.

This project began as a way to bring memories of my hometown to my 89‑year-old mother on her deathbed.  Comforted by family and hospice, she was rarely awake, but, when she was, she was sharp and fully engaged, and the pictures spurred good conversations.

My mother died halfway through the project, and my pictures shifted – from documentary urban landscapes to poignant landscapes and interiors.

My images hold melancholy and nostalgia.  Not despairing sorrow.  Memories both vague and crisp.  No longing to return.  I miss my mother terribly – but the town is only a link, more distant now.

Irma: A Century of Hats and Spirit

Irma was born in 1923. For 95 years she has savored all that life offers.  As she has aged she has outlived her husband, siblings and friends. Her memory is slipping from her. Despite this, she has worn her years well, dressing and behaving with a flair for the dramatic. Irma resides in an assisted living facility. There it is more challenging for her to express her love of beautiful clothing, make-up and glamorous accessories, including hats.

In this series of photographic images, Irma wears styles of hats from the past century. The hats symbolize the idea that beauty endures at all ages, and that age does not deprive an individual of vivid personality.

Irma is my mother, and this project has been deeply meaningful for both of us. Irma loves to pose and is very expressive for the camera. She treasures her portraits and shares them with anyone she encounters. As her daughter, it has given me meaningful time with her, time where we joyfully share a project together that will last for a lifetime.

The Years That Walk Between

In between the smiling poses at special events and holidays, we live our lives. Happy, sad, afraid, confident, we seek out others for work, companionship or fun; we may find solitude to rest, do chores, read and, occasionally, reflect. We are all those moments.

Children do the same. With a purpose we adults cannot always understand, they play, they pause, they seek others, and they are alone. And like adults, it is during those unscripted moments that their real selves surface.

As a grandparent I carry few smiling photos of grandchildren in my purse or on my iPhone ready to display. Rather, I am captivated by the moments in between on the sides of life, the unguarded and revealing minutes or even seconds of their lives, the real images of childhood we sometimes miss when looking for something else. It is those I am sharing with you.

Isolated

My street photographs feature the solitary figure within the urban environment. In a hostile and alienating world, some pursue escape or comfort. Some seek to avoid, while others make the most of it, grinning and bearing the onslaughts of everyday life. Still others can find a sort of peace, wherever they may find themselves. Mostly, we are alone. We survive with a grim determination. The lucky ones have a higher purpose or someone to come home to. This body of works explores some of these environments and the strategies that individuals employ to cope with isolation.