Temporal Plains

Born in Cuba in the last years of the old way of life. Ejected from the island a few years after the upheaval with Castro, at age five I was transported to a small mid-western American town, Hamilton, Ohio. Raised there for the fifteen formative years of my life. Living now in Northern California, as I grew older I found it impossible to determine exactly where home was for me, to point a finger at a map and say “this is home”. This ongoing project is about the powerful ties I still feel to Hamilton. A Rust Belt. A Bible Belt. A Poverty Belt. A Homefront Town in World War II. A Battleground State in 2016. Hamilton is all those things, strongly tied to the past yet emblematic of strongly shifting political and socio-economic allegiances. I set out to capture images of a still existing culture of resistance and fortitude, of a rejection of modern tumult, of a past way of life taking its dying breaths but still proud and defiant. A town where the idea of home grown and handmade have true meaning and value. A town where the annual Walnut Festival is a big deal and where freight trains race through town alongside street traffic unimpeded by modern safety constraints. Most of all, a town of great people. The kind of people worth taking the time to get to know. Along the way I’ve discovered a lot more. Perhaps about myself too, about defining that idea called home.