About the Work
This work began as a search for the fire of volcanic imagery in my photography closer to home. The theme of “offerings” presented itself while I was working on a portfolio of “Lavascapes”--images from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. Many people place flowers, fruit, gin and tobacco at the edge of the Halemaumau crater in order to gain favor with the volcano goddess, Pele. I began to place offerings of red anthurium flowers whenever I went to shoot and was often surprised by the images that presented themselves in the rocks. Later, I photographed the offerings themselves and that idea has carried over into many of these photographs taken along the Maine coast. The offerings, gifts of prayer, are elements such as red berries, placed into the scene. The idea of “Oryoki” is the receiving side of the same idea – oryoki are the bowls that Zen monks carry out into the world empty each day, whatever is placed in the bowl is their nourishment for the day. In these images, the empty bowl is placed into sacred landscapes of earth and water. Several of the images contain neither “offerings” nor “oryoki” but are simply the result of asking to be shown the spirit of the landscape before me.
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