Learning Mandarin and the Language of Lumens. When I began learning Mandarin little did I realize how it would inform my artistic vision. This became evident when I began to experiment with Lumen printing. With the former, I discovered how a seemingly endless permutation of lines, dots, and dashes written within an imaginary square formed meaning through simple and complex forms. With the latter, my thoughts shifted from acquisition of craft to learning a language. In my Lumen prints, instead of ink, I used various biological materials to form bold strokes and elegant lines or whispers of dots and dashes. The imaginary square was transformed into rectangles or other shapes defining the space. The written language is both a means of communication and the art form that is calligraphy. Just as the defining characteristics of the calligrapher’s hand suggests a personality, so too each paper I use reveals a different latent color as if speaking to the personality of the paper. My project, Learning Mandarin and the Language of Lumens, is about learning a process that harkens back to photography’s beginnings, influenced by the visual poetry and rhythmic grace of an old writing system.

Another Time and Place. This series from my journey to SW China reminds me of small souvenirs, which I might bring back from my travels, giving me a connection to that time and place. Each is special in its own way. Each seems to ask me to look, look again, and return. So I look. I wonder. I view these arrested moments informed by rich color. I relive each minute and want more. I never expected to visit China, but I did. I only knew it as a faraway land with a hard to learn language. I discovered that neither was true. In exploring this place unknown to me I realized how much I was transformed by the experience. These scenes from my travels may be seen as liminal space. They represent the time between past and future. This in-between state is a visual manifestation of a journey that is as much about self discovery, as it is about the country of my travels, because an image is more  than its surface appearance. It is the accumulation of one’s experience in life.

A Dream of a Faraway Place. My series,  A Dream of a Faraway Place, explores difference and familiarity in the landscape of my travels. As this work evolved, I discovered that images made in a distant land reminded me of places close to home, and vice versa. This was disorienting. I felt as if I were seeing the world through the soft focus of dreams where memories fragment and merge, producing a remembrance of a time and place that is both real and imagined.

My intent in using the soft focus imagery of zone plate is to point to the uncertainty inherent in dreams.  In addition, I use black and white film to remove any cultural signifiers that would be evident in color. I wish to convey to the viewer both the image fixed in time, and the suggestion of the images as a dream sequence that reveals and conceals places that may or may not be where we thought them to be.

At the Edge of the Fens. I grew up at the edge of the fens. The dark, rich soil of this flat land is forever etched in my heart. Perhaps because I was born in late autumn, each year at this time this landscape calls to me. It is a place I have tried so many times to portray in black and white, thinking color to be a distraction. I discovered the latter was not true.

A fews years ago on my annual visit home all the elements came together to make this series. Seemingly in the space of a few weeks my work was done. However, this was far from true.  My projects do not materialize out of thin air. They first linger in the far reaches of my mind. They are the result of looking, and looking again over an extended period of time. 

Ultimately, I discovered that what drew me to this landscape is its quiet beauty. It is not a place of grand vistas. It is a place of everyday walks. It is the experience of seeing a splash of yellow in the midst of brown, or watching the dance of red and yellow between green. It is the punctuation of a blue door behind tangled vines, or a bold red door juxtaposed to a post of white. This series is an attempt to capture the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to delight in the music of color whether in nature’s sculptural elements or human.

Here and Elsewhere. This series is not about a specific city, but rather is about my experience of “the city”. I thrive on the element of chance, and cities nourish this with unpredictable moments. They are a place where paths overlap and intersect, causing sensory overload as I absorb the visual feast that a metropolis offers. In the endless motion, my impressions are continually changing as one scene entwines with another producing a world that is slightly askew. The result is a complex layering of the urban landscape that is ever changing in my mind’s eye

Poetics of the Landscape. Each season brings with it a certain beauty. For me that season is late autumn. At this time of the year bucolic scenes of summer give way to patterns of abstraction as the mist hovers over the countryside, both obscuring and giving form, revealing the geometry of the dormant land. The trees, having shed their leaves become graceful silhouettes. In turn, roads no longer hidden by summer leaves become elegant lines and curves, appearing in the distance to entwine with streams and rivers like a musical chord first played by the strings then taken up by the woodwinds. Muddy tracks become patterns of possibilities, leading not only to a destination, but also to a revelation of intricate forms. As a result of the autumn mist, I see the landscape anew.

Traces. This series is located at what I call the edge of the world, the place where the land meets the sea. For some, this is a primordial place bringing to mind our earliest ancestors, while for others it is a spot to think about a homeland beyond the horizon, and for yet others it is a place of laughter and summer fun. For me it is a place that is the sum of all these moments and more, because it is where, if only for an instance, the traces of our lives entwine with others.

These traces are found in the ever changing patterns of the receding surf, or in the grains of sands that are constantly reshaped by the elements. They are evident in the signs of absence indicating presence. They are also seen in the sea spray which when illuminated by the light gives a ghostly presence to all in its path. At the edge of the world, people pause and then are gone but the influence of their presence lingers, just as footprints in the sand remain for a moment before disappearing with the changing tide.
 

It's All About the Journey. "The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly".

This quote attributed to Buddha immediately resonated with me because the idea of appreciating the present is central to this series. So often, a preoccupation with the past, or anticipation of the future, overshadows an enjoyment of our surroundings in the moment. Ironically, photography contributes to this dilemma, because once a shot is taken it becomes a moment frozen in time and thus is time past. Or, in developing a series, time is spent reviewing work and thinking about future shots.

The present exists in that fleeting moment between sighting the subject and pressing the shutter. It is a transitory moment, which is instantaneous and intuitive. It is a moment that is spent observing two doves on wet steps, or the gentle undulation of a curtain in a soft breeze. It is a moment that is made extraordinary by the play of sunlight and shadows, or the dance of reflections in the aftermath of rain. The present is often only a pause between past and future, but hopefully this series conveys something of the wonder and intensity of that moment.