Southward

Southward In Southward, I’m exploring what is unique to the landscape of the American Southeast by exploring dense canopies, open vistas, dramatic skies, still waters, live oaks, wooded trails, gulf storms, and back roads. The common thread running through the work is the way that light in its countless variations invites me to pay attention. The approaching light of dawn, the retreating light of dusk, the generous and heavy light of a Southern summer afternoon, the light that plainly reveals beauty and the light that obscures and mystifies. For the past 6 years, I have worked to honor the way such light transforms my encounter with the world (in general) and with the southern landscape specifically. I am amazed by how quickly nature can change from comforting to threatening and that each of these conditions are imbued with beauty, power, mystery, serenity, grace, metaphor, and allegory. I’m interested in capturing the timeless essence of a place through close observation of light and dark, space and atmosphere, stillness, and silence. For this work, I’m using the 19th century wet plate collodion process. I make objects: tintypes and ambrotypes. I make plates on site, and I also integrate this 19th century process with 21st century digital technology by creating tintypes from jpgs using photoshop to make inter-positives and my enlarger to expose the plates. I’m challenged and inspired by this leaping from one century’s technology and aesthetic to another. I welcome the combination of control and happenstance that occur during my process, from exposure to plate to print. One of the many reasons I am drawn to collodion is that it requires me to slow down, and it allows me to experience anticipation for the mysterious images and singular, tangible, precious objects that result.