Initially I thought of my process as "building photographs." Those pictures consisted of layers of paper, pigment, and emulsion. Unlike in commercial photographs, however, the paper substrate was handmade; the pigment might have included stains, threads, and artifacts; and the emulsion offered protection as well as exposure. I began by making the paper that I subsequently layered with various substances. Often, the paper took on dimensions of sculptural proportion, with its thickness measured in centimeters as opposed to millimeters. Frequently, too, the materials from which the paper was made had specific significance. For example, the paper pulp for the piece titled “Blushing” was made from secondhand clothing I purchased based on what I imagined its former occupants needed to express their internal vulnerability. That for “Sister” came from clothing borrowed but never returned.

For the past eight years, I have committed to wearing only one color of clothing in an attempt to bleed into both photographic and experiential memory processes. As a child, adolescent, and young adult I lived in a place that owes much of its history to a river, a lake, a canal, and a waterfall—all were inseparable from my identity. By wearing blue everyday, I feel I am a “distributary” to these bodies of water.

More recently, with my blue outfit as a constant structure and defined space, I've begun to think about the motivation for the layering processes I use, less in terms of the strata of photography, and more as a way to engineer the balance of structure and its opposite into one whole. This whole is meant to parallel the sense of consciousness in which one’s thoughts oscillate between active engagement and passive disinterest in a given subject during any activity. In such works the layers are as likely to be psychological as physical. For example, “Learning German, Kugelschreiber” is a work made by drawing straight pen lines repeatedly during a stay in Dresden, Germany. Over time, the lines reveal a pattern formed by the table underneath the paper. This piece references the underlying information I missed due to my unfamiliarity with the idioms of the language.

With both approaches the result is assembled composites that frame, balance, and bridge parts of a world. In a sense, they let me structure my subjectivity and, at the same time, make concrete my interests in the history of ideas, the relevance of place, and the psychology that holds it together. These composites make pictures of the way the world works and of fragments of it I seek to sustain, complete, and protect.