photography show

i had a photograph show. i had 7 pairs of photographs. i sold them each for $75. out of 14, i sold 11. my friends are wonderful. my family is wonderful. mother sun played, and they were perfect, needless to say. with the help (understatement) of monk (who runs the gallery space), we handmade all of the frames, hand cut all of the mats and glass. these are some of the most personal images, memories in my life. seeing them hanging, framed, all in a room together, felt like the deepest inhale, and the slowest exhale of memory and feeling and wonder. the photographs are set up in pairs. each pair has one photograph from pittsburgh and one from arizona. the themes are pretty obvious: moon, people, trees, flowers, etc.

here's the artist statement:
"I should be able to return to solitude each time as to the place I have never described to anybody, as the place which I have never brought anyone to see, as the place whose silence has mothered an interior life known to no one but God alone." – Thomas Merton

This collection of photographs is about the tension between two things that cannot become one. As a child my father took us on trips all across America – to some of the most obscure and beautiful places this country and I fell in love with the diverse and changing landscape of the West. As a college student, I spent a summer working at the Grand Canyon National Park and then returned after graduation for 6 months. These pictures are all taken in my 24^th year – from one birthday to the next. They were taken before I left, while I lived in Arizona, and then the period of time when I first came home to Pittsburgh. The collection is set up in 8 sets of pairs, each photograph showing the beauty of such different places. The freedom of such large, open spaces and the beauty found in the understated colors and sometimes nothingness of Northern Arizona stands in stark contrast to the greenness of home, the beauty found in the industrial parts of the city and the emotional connections to a place you’ve lived your whole life in. During my time in Arizona, I found the most comforting solitude and independence being detached from the people I love, streets and neighbors full of memories and living a life without attachment. I found joy in simplicity and in routine and found my desires totally quenched; feeling for the first time totally satisfied. In Pittsburgh, I find comfort and love in knowing and being known by a community and a city. I also find inspiration from the desires and wants that come with living in a city among people. I have daydreamed of a time and place where the desert and the city could be next to teach other, where you could lock yourself away and never be found but still somehow be close to the people around you, where the desert brush and fall leaves sat together on the same ground and where buildings sculpted by man were dwarfed next to rocks carved by God. It is this want and this desire of both that plagues me. It is the tension that plagues me, inspires me and grows me.

here's the photographs:

birds flying downtown for brian werner when i worked downtown and hated my life / rock formation outside of lees ferry that my mother loved

graham street apartment fire escape with laurie, the day we walked to the train tracks / moonrise over kendrick's park on the road between flagstaff and the grand canyon

red tree on the way to ritters the day i moved home / wild fire tree, sometimes death is beautiful

indian paint brush on the way to shoshoni point / flowers at highland park where there once were none

pink coral sand dunes state park in utah, also known as some of the most beautiful days of your life, you walked to the top, i stayed behind / sytea, student at miller african centered academy in the hill

clouds over the grand canyon, i've looked at clouds from both sides now / the cloud factory on my 24th birthday, or Re: Stacks

you are now traveling on the only unpaved road within 2.8 million acres, the road between the south rim and north rim of the grand canyon / coopers rock state park, west virginia