Creation Stories

Creation Stories is an on-going project that embraces the ideas of collaboration between artist and subject and integrating visual and written storytelling. Each of the project's participants fill out at Alter Ego/Second Life questionnaire. Their answers determine the photo session's location and the subject costumes and/or props. I then set to work on the flash fiction story. Once I print out the story, I set to work on photographing the pages. In post processing, I use the double exposure technique to blend the story and subject's photos onto the same image plane. The first story, "Odd & Even" is mine. I was challenged by a friend to be the projects "guinea pig." The second story, "Alive in Elysium," is the second life chosen by a woman living in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She and her husband have raised their three children in this suburb of Boston, but she dreams of a much "simpler" life. I am planning to have at least 20 more participants for this project. It is fascinating listening to people stories and wish lists, and how this differs with what they project to the outside world. Artistically, I am fascinated how it is acceptable for words and images to share the same space in picture books, graphic novels, magazines, social media, but in other forms of art, the two must remain separate. Words and images merged together elevate each other aesthetically and provide a deeper subtext for the audience. I will continue to explore how to challenge myself and my audience of our preconceived ideas of how artist mediums are presented. I envision that these images will be printed on gallery wrapped canvas and the dimensions to be at least 24"x36".