Pleased as punch to have work featured in the Diffusion Annual X from One Twelve Publishing. This is always such a beautifully curated and designed periodical and presents a thoughtful celebration of the craft of photography. Really honored to be included.
Poem for Paula
It’s been seven days
that have passed,
in this world
without you.
And I’m still searching,
for your face,
scrolling for memories
in the dark.
It was Fall when we began,
our stained hands,
tipping trays.
He’s cute you whispered,
a friendly aside.
The openings when
you showed up,
you always showed up,
always knew that
it mattered.
Later, Houston.
Turell at dawn,
Twombly by lunch,
Rothko in the afternoon.
A stolen day
Just for us..
Summer, binding books,
frustrated with the folding,
with the exactness of the making.
You took what you needed,
leaving the rest,
making it yours
uniquely, brilliantly,
perfectly
yours.
New Orleans in December, .
A balm of dusty beignets
on a cold afternoon.
Last month, of you,
the only mention —
It’s a drag, you said,
but I’m doing okay,
I just get really tired.
And I believed you,
about the okay part.
A shared vision —
my words colliding
with your blues, ochres, silver.
our expanding constellations
on the page.
I’ll do it soon. I said.
Weeks passed.
I heard you, at the end, saying hi,
at the end, I heard you.
Not knowing,
it was the last time.
And in my diary,
my note, too late:
- poem for Paula.
Landfall Selected as Top 12 Books for 2020 by Photobook Journal.
Thank you so much to everyone at The Photobook Journal for selecting Landfall as one of their most interesting books of 2020. So very grateful for this recognition.
Landfall Review - Photobook Journal
Thank you to Douglas Stockdale and the team at Photobook Journal for this considered and thoughtful review. It means so much when someone truly appreciates and understands your work. What an honor to be included here.
“Her poems are printed on reverse of a French-fold semi-translucent vellum pages, so reading the poetry is like experiencing words that are lost in a gentle fog. This hazy and indistinct fog is also common to the Maine coastline and adjacent islands in the off-season. Pages of her beautiful poetry are layered over equally lyrical black and white photographs that appear to be ghostly images situated in the distance behind her text. This is a brilliant metaphoric book design feature that creates multiple layers about the potential readings of her thoughtful narrative”. Douglas Stockdale - Photobook Journal.
Landfall Review in Portland Press Herald
Thank you Bob Keys for featuring Landfall in the Portland Press Herald in his review of the show accompanying the launch. On view now at The Page Gallery until November 8.
Landfall Launch
I am so thrilled to announce the launch of my new limited edition book Landfall, which takes you on a journey through the islands off the coast of Maine in Penobscot Bay through my photographs and poems. I am also releasing a collector’s edition of the book that comes in a case made by Shelter Bookworks with a letterpress poem printed by the Brother of Elysium and a platinum-palladium print. Thank you to Kat Kiernan for the wonderful foreword.
Touchstones on Lenscratch
Thank you so much to Aline Smithson and the team over at Lenscratch for writing about the project I’ve been working on in collaboration with my good friend Dawn Surratt. Dawn is a wonderful photographer and artist and it has been one of the unexpected pleasures from this strange and challenging year to get to know her. Our project Touchstones was envisioned as a call and response, where we create diptychs and write poetry inspired by the imagery. It is a meditation on connection in times of isolation.
You can read more about in this conversation between Dawn and I on Lenscratch.
Landfall News
So thrilled that Landfall is featured in this week’s summer ready by Don’t Take Pictures. The wonderful and talented Kat Kiernan wrote the foreward to Landfall and it is a better book because of it. Thanks also to Andy Adams for featuring it in FlakPhoto.
Touchstones
in Poetry
My good friend and I Dawn Surratt began a project together when this pandemic began. Sharing images and poems, creating diptychs and inventions to help us navigate this time together. You can check it out at Touchstones or follow us on Instagram @touch__stones. It’s been such a support and inspiration working with Dawn through this time. Here’s my most recent post.
I lie awake, alert
to the scritchscratch
of the night raiders
launching their assault
against the stoic coop.
Their small babyhands, human-like;
panda eyes, needle teeth.
Night thoughts -
like drunken flies
circling the light,
can find no purpose
or direction,
just random, panicked,
instinct.
I turn, and hear
a rustle in the woods,
my eyes snap, open.
thinking not thinking —
Breathe.
Dilemmas,
like pebbles in my mouth
rolling over and over;
my tongue
smoothes their contours
with relentless
consideration,
reconsidering.
Today, tomorrow
then, now, before, after,
this, that, how, which way —
when?
No answers
from the night.
Just the leaves,
whispering their lullaby
for the dreamless.
Dreaming of Waking
in Exhibitions
Thank you to Photo Place for including my image “Dreaming of Waking” as part of their online exhibition Portraits of Self Isolation during the Corona virus pandemic.
Hot Off The Press
It has been such a pleasure to work with the folks at Datz press on my book Landfall. Last week they sent me this video of the work in progress!
Can you Imagine?
in Poetry
Can you imagine
your son,
with his neck
under the knee,
as his breath came in shorter
and he begged for release?
Or your daughter,
asleep in her bed,
as the door came down
and she woke in
terror to the
shootingshouting roaring
through her ears?
Or your cousin, out running,
brought down
in his prime,
for no
reason?
Or a child,
a young child,
your
child —
beaten,
on the side
of the road,
like she was nothing
like she was not
even
a
thing?
You cannot imagine,
because this,
should be
unimaginable.
But we are
watching
watching
watching
We should be
listening
listening
listening
For the time for watching
is over,
and the time for acting
is now.
This poem is available as a limited edition print with 100% of proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
How to Make this Moment the Turning Point
Barack Obama
How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality
The Cut, New York Magazine
The Leaving
Internal Dialogue Exhibit at One Twelve Publishing
Thank you to Fran Forman and Michael Kirchoff for including my photograph The Leaving in their online exhibit Internal Dialogue. An honor to be amongst such fine photographers.
From the jurors: For all of us, forced social distancing can be accompanied by fear, anger, loneliness - but also a time for self-reflection. None of us has ever experienced a time like this. What are our feelings about this? We artists apply our internal feelings to our creations. How does this manifest in our internal dialogue? We want to see how your inner thoughts are expressed in external ways.
When Would We be ready?
in Poetry
You followed us
to the barn,
late at night.
We played pool
and you slept,
under the table,
barely lifting
your head.
You still ran for the ball,
slower now -
a slight roll to your gait.
Arthritis, we thought.
You swayed as you stood,
steadily watching us,
deciding when
we would be ready
for you to leave.
Our brother,
getting older.
We still thought
we had years
to squander.
You walked with us,
around the field,
swam doggily in the pond,
that one, last, time.
Then you laid down
and would not get up,
would not move for a treat,
nor thump your tail,
at the sound
of your name.
And we knew.
that you were done,
that you were ready
to leave us
to feel you gone.
Sharing Work
Last week I was fortunate enough to teach a very talented group of photographers in my class for Maine Media - Exploring Photographic Styles. I so enjoy teaching this class as it gives students a chance to try their hand at a range of photographic genres. They have to be brave, try new things and not be afraid of making mistakes - because there are none! Here is a selection of their beautiful work from the week.
Abby Raeder
Elizabeth Rowley
Anne Houde
Vanessa Levesque
Ashira Malka
Judith Donath
For more information on upcoming classes and workshops. Please sign up for my newsletter from the homepage.
A Gift for Evening
in Poetry
Finally it is evening.
In the kitchen,
the children chatter,
Outrage, then
laughter breaks
over the dishes.
I am washing up,
bent over,
wiping away,
the endless remains
of dinner.
We careen through chaos,
in each others way —
yet pulled together,
like random space junk
orbiting the sun.
Intent upon routine,
I find comfort in
this domestic rhythm.
Through the window,
the Spring light strikes
a stand of trees,
the sky behind them,
thunder-dark.
The lone birch,
where the swing
hangs vacant,
is lit, as if by torchlight.
All alive in limb and sinew
it calls on us to notice.
We pause and stare
at this, the world cracked open,
light pours in
silver-swift.
Just as quick,
the moment’s gone,
an evening gift
we hold forever.
Upcoming Online Workshop
Like most of you I have found myself weathering extremes of emotion navigating these uncertain waters. My personal routine has remained oddly unchanged, I work from home, in my studio, in what is a fairly solitary practice. But there are changes. My children are both home, but as teens are finding it very hard to be away from their friends. We cook, play scrabble and then they retreat to their online schooling and FaceTiming and silence descends on the house once more. I miss friends, coffees, and collective gatherings terribly, but there are glimmers of excitement.
This May I am working with Maine Media to offer my upcoming class, Exploring Photographic Styles online. We will have class lectures and critiques via Zoom in the mornings, in the afternoons there will be shooting assignments, and we will reconvene once more at the end of the day. So if you have been wanting to push your photography and explore portraiture or landscapes, or still lives and the facets of each, this is a great class for you to get an introductory overview.
Please join me, wherever you are as we explore photographic styles together!
Yesterday
in Poetry
I came in
from the garden,
my hands dirty,
my nails, soiled,
and I wept.
For I’d been lost,
in the brambles,
in the sweet
now of doing,
and had forgotten
for a moment,
that the world
was breaking,
and the people
were dying.
Then the memory came,
like a wave
crashing over me,
and I couldn’t
breathe
for thinking,
of the world
that is breaking,
and the people
that are dying.
But I returned
to the garden,
to the sweet
now of doing,
and I breathed the air,
and I smelled the earth
and I lost myself
in the brambles.
Art for a Cause
In tandem with Page Gallery I am selling these cyanotype prints to raise money for local food banks. All my proceeds are going to charity.
$80 including tax and shipping
Sheltering in Place
in Poetry
I went to the store
just once
this week.
And even then
I didn’t go in,
but pulled up,
curbside,
rolled down my window,
like a furtive user,
collecting my stash
of flour,
quinoa,
eggs and
beans —
the staples
that hold us
together.
Was it only
last week,
that we met
for walks,
keeping our
distance,
playing it safe?
Now the parks are
closed.
We are staying home,
close to home,
keeping home
close.