artist statement
Photography allows me to connect—to people, to places and to experiences. In my current project, I examine the shift in my perspective after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Through making the images in Semaphore, I draw connections between the visual world around me and my internal experience to help me come to terms with this life changing diagnosis.
Exploring the landscape with camera in hand, I look more closely at the environment, both examining nature’s detail and its broad expanse. When composing an image, I use framing, perspective and shifts in focus to draw relationships between visual elements in the scene before me. Since 2001, I have titled my landscapes after the GPS coordinates from which each image was taken to record my point of place, an anchor for each photograph. Mapping my position facilitates the opportunity to re-find this point and to connect with others who may have come there before me or may arrive there in the future. In my recent landscape project, Common Ground, I shoot in public parks—locations meaningful to me and to the local community.
I am fascinated by the relationship between the photographic image and truth. As a slice of the visible world, a photograph – a designed illusion – is momentarily perceived as truth. That moment of confusion upon looking at a photograph invites an emotional connection, and for me an enduring curiosity. This connection is true for me in my images of children from the Traces series and similarly engaging for me as I interpret landscapes. Photography empowers me to create order in response to the world around me; an order in which I aim to establish a relationship to my environment and a conversation within my images.
project statements
Semaphore
2019 - present
Archival pigment prints
13” image on 17" paper, edition of 6 +1AP
select images also 20" image size on 24" paper, edition of 3 +1AP
Semaphore examines the shift in my perspective after having been diagnosed seven years ago with Parkinson’s disease. Through images, I consider what it means to integrate this life-altering information into my sense of self. What does acceptance look like?
Post diagnosis, everyday items and experiences take on new meaning. New tasks top my “to do” list each day. Simple tools now present a challenge. Uncertainty pervades the periphery surfacing my vulnerability. As I look around me, the branches of trees become networks of neurons or resemble tendons in my wrist imaged by an MRI. Acknowledging these signals facilitates the process of adaptation. Optimism holds the key for me right now. Light, always an inspiration, illuminates a path for me to follow. And I go.
Parkinson’s disease is currently the world’s fastest growing brain disorder. Currently, over ten million people live with Parkinson’s worldwide. While this project is relevant to the Parkinson’s community, it also connects with others whose journeys require growth, patience, and perseverance to move forward.
This year I published a book of this project with Kehrer Verlag. The book has 96 pages, includes 67 images, and an essay by Rebecca Senf, PhD, Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.
2015-present
Archival pigment prints
18.25” edition of 10, 28.5” edition of 8, 40” edition of 3
Can we connect to the past and future by way of image-making?
I am inspired by a perceived connection to the history and future of experiences lived on the shared common ground of public parks and gardens.
I title my landscapes with the GPS coordinates from which each photograph was taken. The images, anchored by the data of longitude and latitude, are my subjective response to that specific location and time. Picturing one of a myriad of possible views from that point, the images emphasize the unique experience of person and place. In turn, the coordinates and images chart my individual journey in these public places. Locations represented here include the Tuileries in Paris and Waveny and Irwin parks in New Canaan, CT.
2007-2015
C-prints
18.25” edition of 10, 28.5” edition of 8, 40” edition of 3
Having moved to Connecticut from New York City years ago, I spend much of my time driving. Whereas I used to people-watch while walking in the city, in Connecticut (the suburbs) I focused on the road. When noticing a skid mark, I would wonder what circumstances created it. This curiosity was no doubt linked to the death of my father, who fell asleep at the wheel of his car when I was a child. Many years later I visited the crash site but saw no trace of the accident.
An exploration of marks on roads Road Works looks at the road as a palimpsest--an accumulation of traces from journeys traveled, nature's impact and public maintenance.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates in each title mark the point from which each photograph was taken--indicating that it is one view from that point on Earth. As these road marks reflect the prior actions or events that created them, similarly my negative and print record my per- spective. Recognizing my fantasy that there would be evidence possibly marking my father’s exit from this world led me to look at roads in a different way—to see roads themselves as road signs and to read their marks as metaphors.
2002-2007
C-prints
18.25” edition of 10, 28.5” edition of 10, 40” edition of 3
At the crossroads of Gretna and Melville sits a dairy farm. In the series Functional Ground, I explore the visual terrain of this working farm and the surrounding roads and fields. Shooting with a shallow depth of field and often at ground level, these images draw the viewer’s attention to the specific details of the scene—to the microcosm within this ecosystem.
Science and technology have given us new ways to catalog our world and our whereabouts. Each image in this series is titled with the date and the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of the point from which it was photographed. Using this data emphasizes the connection between the interpreted image and the physical source. While the images show a natural environment marked by human use, the GPS coordinates refer to my tracks as I photograph this environment.
Each image while precise in it's selective focus and coordinates, reflects one of an infinite number of views from that point emphasizing the unique experience of person and place. With the coordinates providing a skeleton, these images together create a subjective portrait of a place.
1998-2002
C-prints
18.25” edition of 10, 24” edition of 10, 40” edition of 3
The camera lens makes it possible for the eye to see variations of focus. In this series of images I use shallow focus to highlight selected elements over others. This technique influences the viewer’s sense of space, texture and scale within the frame. The elements in soft focus tend to recede and fall beyond the reach of vision or memory. In contrast, the sharply focused elements anchor the image and come forward.
Creating new visual relationships between the forms inside the frame allows me to transform what I see physically into a representation of my sensory experience. Taken of nature and other familiar subjects, these photographs both reference and confuse the viewer’s prior knowledge, requiring more associative than literal interpretation.
2003-2013
Archival pigment prints
Image size 10.5”x14” or 10.5”x15.75”, print size 16”x20” or 21.75”, edition 9
Image size 18”x24” or 18”x27” , print size 24”x30” or 33", edition of 5
Image size 26”x35” or 26”x39”, print size 32”x41” or 45”, edition of 3
“Memory believes before knowing remembers…”
William Faulkner, Light in August
Trace elements may only occur in small amounts but are essential to life. The childhood moments depicted in Traces focus on the brief instances of exploration, growth or transition in everyday life – experiences distilled into single images that are uncovered through the viewer’s frame of reference or understanding. Observant of the innocence and wisdom of children, I endeavor to document their journeys – no matter how big or small.