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

what a tangled web we weave

i am thinking tonight about home. and that i think it's good. recently, in small glimpses, i've been reminded of what it means to really live in isolation. and i've been reminded that it's not what i want.

when tresean got off the bus today, he ran up to me and hugged me. while i was gone in california, his funding for the afterschool program was cut. so i hadn't seen him in two weeks. i'd missed him. he doesn't always offer me hugs, in fact, he rarely does. but today it was natural and true. it's subtle, but it's good.

i have about 700 photographs that i took in california. it's going to take me a while to post them. until then, you should know, the best part, this time, was coming home. this morning there was a deep fog that had settled on the city. i was driving on bigelow blvd. and the yellow leaves were shining through the fog. this road, i've traveled every day for two years now, for various reasons, is the road that always draws out of me the most tender affection for this city. and it's not just the city - it's my family, and my friends, and my past. no pacific coast highway, or tallest tree in the world, or most spectacular sunset can replace that.

and in the morning, i'll think of anything - paul simon, or jed dryer, or tusayan, arizona and i'll feel differently. but tonight, i feel this way.

frick park

we must have walked hundreds of miles in frick park that spring. some silent. some angry. some in love. i remember the red flower we stuck in your jacket pocket. i remember, always, how colors looked when they were close to you. you were always the deepest black against the brightest or dullest colors. we walked your dog before she died. i remember wet socks and shoes, freezing toes. i remember the rush of warmth when we'd walk into your house. that winter and spring there were endless days of rain and cold - and sometimes we had the warmth to withstand it.

the seasons are changing and so am i, sort of.

these are pictures i took on a walk to the cemetery. fall is usually a really sentimental, nostalgic season. i look forward to covering myself in a blanket of those emotions - but not this year. for the first time in a long time, my emotions seem to be pretty steady - just sort of happy and even. maybe as we grow up, we learn to temper our emotions and separate our thoughts from our feelings - because as i've gotten older, my brain has only become more and more of a jumbled mess. struggling constantly with things, and swirls, and circles, and cycles and thoughts that never, ever end. finding myself in the healthiest, happiest relationship i could have ever imagined - but plagued by the highest expectations for my life, for relationships and a radical amount of need and want for everything that is me. finding very little honesty in the world of romantic love and marriage - no one seems to be honest with me. i think they're scared. frustrated by christianity's imbalanced focus on selflessness, and hatred of self, and the idea that community is the savior.

dad

(i didn't take this picture, i found it online because i don't have many good pictures from this day)

we're driving from denver to moab, utah. we're going to spend a few days in moab at arches before we head back to colorado to spend a week at mesa verde. to say that our relationship has been tumultuous over the course of my life might be an understatement - my coldness and moodiness is difficult for you, when your love and affection is constantly overflowing for me and sometimes i just reject it. it's hurtful, i know, but i've never been able to fix it. i've sat in the car with you before and its felt like there is a wall thicker than any wall i'd ever built between us. but not today - i won't let it happen today and that's the most that i can give you or anyone - not today, not in this particular car ride.

i remember very little about this trip - except the nothingness. the comfort of the nothingness returning to my landscape. nothing, but something, too. the green is gone, or at least its more subtle now. there are new colors: white, red, brown. roads are long and straight and unending. there are no farm houses here, no barns, no hills - there is not endless green in every direction i look. there is change, there is openness, there is a horizon, there is sky.

i remember so many car rides with you. the first time you played paul simon with me, drives all around this great country - from maine to washington and everywhere inbetween. the times we got lost - but never really lost with you, you seem to know every road in america, every street in every city, you've traveled them all, the times we took the longest ways possible because it was prettier or even more remote. the times matt and i would roll down the window and make annoying sounds at the cows everytime we passed some in wyoming. eventually you had to lock the windows. do you remember the time at the hoover dam where we were all so annoyed with each other and in my mind, i thought, "my family might leave me here at the hoover dam." the time at the antietam battle field where we had the audio guide and either matt or i broke the tape and everyone hated each other because it was hot and we'd been in the car for too long. there was the time in maine where matt decided to make fun of your nose hair thinking it might loosen the tension in the car, but it only made you more angry. later we all laughed endlessly about it, but not then.

i remember when we were driving to yellowstone and i was 8 years old. matt and mom were asleep in the backseat. we got to the entrance, the one made out of stone. we drove under the arch with the quote from roosevelt, "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." i was so happy to be awake with you at that moment. i was always awake with you when mom and matt slept. i was gulided to the window, always, watching the landscape change, daydreaming and thinking and feeling everything i saw. reading the map, listening to music with you, listening to your stories about these places. you took us down the most crooked, bumpy dirt roads, sometimes ruining our rental car just to show us some place you'd read about in a novel or just to get a better glimpse of a mountain from the road.

so now we're riving from denver to moab. and eventually the road turns left. now there are mesas, so tall. walls so high and so red. we are driving along the colorado river. i am now an alien in a strange place - this is not pennsylvania. it is what the inner canyon looks like of the grand canyon. we are running out of gas. there is rock, so much rock. so big, so strong and the sun is shinning so brightly on the rock, on me, on the car. it was so beautiful that we were both speechless, or maybe we just repeated over and over, "oh my." we can see the la sal mountains peaking over the red mesas and strange towers of red rock.

the sun is so hot and so bright, my eyes are squinted nearly shut. i think i've left my sunglasses in the trunk. and then you reach your hand out across me. your put your hand up, and block the sun from my eyes. and there i am, a daughter with her father. your arm stretched out, driving only with your left hand now. and there i am again, a 4-year old driving to preschool on 5th avenue in pittsburgh, with my father blocking the sun from my eyes.

kids, again.

this is taylor. one time we were at the science center looking at the train track / miniature village. we were stuck at the back of the line, taking our time pointing out our favorite houses and people and the park and the movie theater. at the end, night time came and the old kennywood lit up, neither of us wanted to leave. she told me, "miss laura, it's just so perfect. i want to live there. it's just not fair." and then i cried.this is mariah. she is the bravest person i know.

this is katie. she is neurotic. but she is the kindest child i've ever known.

this is katie and mariah spinning.

this is hunter. the fact that a child like him still exists in this world should give all of us hope.

kids

she will captivate you with her kazoo and spray bottle. and you will love her like crazy.