Dear Reader,

I wonder how to describe in an unguarded, expressive way my process of creating photographs. How do I start a conversation about my work? Can I tell you a beautiful story about why I am making this work? When I am in the process of taking photographs, I rely almost exclusively on intuition, shooting from the heart. It is only after the picture is taken, when I step back and let the image wash over me, that I begin to see its meaning.

In these two photographs, pulled together because both have branches of one kind or another, the stories are just below the surface. I remember my grandmother’s hands carefully picking dried-on-the-vine raisins. She used the raisins to make something she called a Poor Man’s pound cake. I haven’t thought about that cake in years, but when I saw the grape stems, I immediately thought of her and that delicious cake. She served the cake to my grandfather and his two buddies, Mr. Butler and Jimmy Gorman, who stopped by for coffee and conversation most every morning. The second picture, taken at George Washington’s Birthplace in Westmoreland County, is connected by memories of my grandparents, too. My grandfather helped plant trees lining the road to the river. Every single time we visited this beach, my grandmother proudly re-told the story of my grandfather’s contribution to this beautiful place.

While these stories are unique to my growing up, they speak to the importance of those foundational years for children. Even though they are presented here as a simple diptych, they are a part of a larger body of work that I am building that deals with the healing and hope for those who grew up with emotional trauma. Those who reach adulthood with all of the external markers of success and yet feel their foundation crumbling. I didn’t realize this, didn’t set out to address this theme, but writing here . . . I can see that this is true.

 
 

One Picture/One Paragraph

I love looking at this habit tracker as I walk by my desk. It is a reminder of who I used to be and how very far I have come. There was a time when I made long lists of the ways I should improve. Ways to eat healthier, exercise more, sleep better, drink more water, and on and on. But things are different now. I don’t know if it’s my inner rebel showing her sassy self or if I have simply recognized the tragedy of a life lived with so many expectations and goals. But either way, the notepad of weekly chores with its little circles sits unchecked. This does not feel like failure. It feels like compassion. Life is often filled with home-cooked meals and long walks and creative activities and joyful movement and fulfilling relationships, all in their own time and space. There are boring, ordinary days. Days of rest to balance those of activity. Days to read all day or watch funny television shows. Days that I do not feel well. Days to celebrate. And days of sorrow over what may come. Tears of joy over every little thing. The days of the week are marked by humanity and wholeness.

My mother had a favorite saying. “In another life, I could have been . . .” She usually filled in the blank by saying she could have been a singer. Truthfully, she wasn’t a great singer but she put her whole heart into singing and she was lit from within whenever there was music. Of course, she was right in many ways. Singing was not a career that ever would have been available to her. She needed to earn money and working in the family restaurant business wasn’t just an offer, it was expected. No, really it was demanded. And so she spent her life cooking and serving food. It was a good life, but I always sensed that she felt she might have missed out on something. I get it. When I was student there were only a few options presented for work, specifically women’s work. No one ever opened a door to creative work or an artful life. I am ever grateful that I did not have to wait for “another life” to discover creative expression—photography and poetry and writing. And all of the many ways to behold life.

Farm House | Olympus om-1, Kodak portra 400

I’ve been reading a beautiful essay, Navigating the Mysteries by Martin Shaw, in Emergence Magazine, Volume 3. There is so much to think on in his words.

“My petition is that we accept the challenge of uncertainty. As a matter of personal style. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what the Anglo-Saxons called ‘living in the bone-house.’ We get older, we find life is riven with weirdness. We should be weird, too. To know, tell, and create stories is a wondrous skill that keeps faith with the traditional and beauteous techniques our ancestors used when faced with the sudden mists and tripwires of living.”

Every picture is a story, a way of beholding the world. This what I love about photography.

The concluding lines of this essay inspire and uplift.

“What are we bored by, what needs to stay stay buried? What deserves to be re-imagined, re-seeded, re-beheld?
That’s where the joyful work is. I’m handing you a spade.
This a moment of unexpected possibility.”