What remains when everything is forever changing? Transforming. Generating. Becoming. Dying. Disappearing. From soil to emotion to vibrations of a heartbeat. Everything changes in time.

Even time capsules, meant to preserve the past, become something else once opened and exposed. All records find their fate in a state other than when they were first created.

In this body of work, there are imprints of a moment, and moments, in time. The essence of an object is burned into photographic paper by the rays of the sun. The paper’s emulsion is altered by both the sunlight and the unique makeup of the foreign body pressed against it. Over a period of time, the paper becomes not just a paper, but an image, a print, and it will be perceived as such until the imprint disappears. Then, it returns to paper. Then, it returns to dust. Because, though the sun exposes the paper to reveal an image, the sun also causes the image to fade. The sun will burn the paper. The wind will erode it. The work is living, and it is dying at the same time.

I think about the life that is weathered by wind and rain and bleached by the sun. I think about the skeletal remains of plants, and animals, and objects, and memories etched onto the faces of people. The objects chosen for this body of work represent moments of time in my life. They are markers of what was: bonds with special people who have passed; versions of myself that no longer exist; connections with land I used to walk. These memories and records are carried with me until I, too, return to my original state of being before conception — nothingness.   

The work itself is made over lengthy periods of time. I wait for the right objects and symbols to present themselves. Further patience is required for the inspiration to arrive on how to arrange these markers. The Sun must hit the paper at the right angles with just the right strength for the essence of the object to transfer. Throughout this time of waiting and watching, the strength of the sun is changing. I am changing. The objects and symbols I am drawn to work with change.

I wonder, what will reveal itself in the process of making this work? What new shapes and layers will appear? And, what will disappear after the work is made? What remains – if anything – when everything is forever changing?

–Originally written for Salonnière Paper 02