artist statement

The subjects I find myself turning to with my camera are often both remote in their beauty and deeply familiar. They represent the terrain of my particular life -- the semi-Southern Maryland of my adulthood and the New England of my summers and childhood -- as well as years working with fabric and textile design.

I came to photography after more than a decade spent making and designing clothing. By combining images of fabrics and papers with my photographs, I have been able to merge this interest in texture and pattern with a desire for more representational work that tells a particular story.

The strength of the digital darkroom is its ability to marry these seemingly disparate materials with photography. At times I have combined painting, stitching, even loose strands of fiber, embedding them in what would otherwise remain a strictly photographic image. I choose textures that will reinforce the shapes or images of a photograph, as well as the mood.

To me, the layers give these sometimes lonely landscapes a human, tactile quality. The work is transformed into something more dreamlike, imagined, or slightly impossible.

At times, the mood of an image strikes me as perfect without alteration. In those pieces, which are also shown on this site, I make the choice to let the images stand alone.

All of my photographs, whether layered or not, are printed on watercolor paper. The paper lends a subtle texture and matt finish to each print. Each image is printed using archival ink in limited editions of 100.

My work has been included in two books: Digital Photo Art by Theresa Airey and Batik for Artists and Quilters by Eloise Piper. Photographs have been included in several national group shows and are currently on view at Domaine Gallery, 223 Commercial Street in Portland Maine.