Freed From Rage and Sorrow

Reflections of Emptiness in the American Dream

My work moves from traditional photography to textural and dimensional mixed media. In two thousand and eighteen, my obsession with newsprint, photo journalism and street art converged in a piece inspired by fire.

Driven by a childhood vision in black and white, these works incorporate film photographs printed with toner on washi over layers of varied papers, paints and acrylic mediums creating window like portals in the fabric of spacetime.

Past and future intersect in this examination of time and consciousness through the juxtaposition of accurate visions of the future with traumatic memory loss of lived experiences.

This work documents my investigation into the nature of reality as it interrogates personal and historical narratives of survival, land and identity.

Truth is in the Land

I’ve traveled the back roads and captured the moments that speak. The land has it’s own story. Buried in the lines and cracks, trickling down the waterways and through the skies. The story of time and the nature of being.

The ancestors spoke when I was young. They told me what was here, what was real and what was needed. They showed me the future and whispered of the past. This land remembers, it has a voice and it wants to be heard.

“Truth is in the land,” the voice said. Stories are written and spoken, but I needed to know. Surrendering to intuition and forsaking the known, I observed in the world around me the path I was destined to take. Relating patterns, unfolding perceptions, traveling this naked reality in pursuit of understanding.

Four Corners

Over thirty years ago, I had a vision. I told no one until now.

It wasn’t the first or the last, but it was the only vision of such acute intensity and specificity. It told me of the future and now that future is happening.

“When will I be free?” I called out silently to the mountain from the truest desperation within my heart, “When will everything be free?”. The answer came like a shock wave nearly knocking me to the ground.

My sight went dark and the voice began speaking. “Many people will die.” Disoriented and nearly passing out from the immense force I felt pressing down on me, with great effort and focus, I managed to remain standing. “These people will die,” the voice said as I walked away from the monument as quickly and normally as possible. Afraid of interruption and questions if anyone should notice my condition, I made my way to the parking lot. I found a reasonable spot to hide, crouched down and listened to the voice while seeing what was being shown.

Muhu Tasen

I’ve had trouble with memory. There were parts of my mind I couldn’t access and years of my life I could not recall. “Someday you will photograph your experience,” the voice said. These photographs are symbols. Field notes. Mnemonic devices for a map of the knowledge I was searching for and a method of restoring my mind. Everything is connected and everything had to be tested.

“Like this bowl of water,” the elder said, “your vision is clear.” This work is a document of the past and threshold to the future. It is evidence. Something to leave behind. I have had to be honest though I didn’t want to. “I think you are born to it,” my godmother said looking out the window as we went into our meditation.

Everything is Vipassana.

Dhamma Dena

The consequence of oppression and abuse are the same on an individual level as on the societal and the environmental. The dominator’s control over powerlessness, erasure of identity, attack on memory and silencing of speech and thought by physical, emotional and psychological pain and manipulation result in severe, traumatic injury of mind, body and soul. This traumatized relationship with ourselves is reflected in our conception and our treatment of the earth and all that is a part of it.

Through understanding the process of erasure and finding ways to experience peace and awareness, rather than fear and distortion, I learn to stay present in a life that has been under constant threat and attack. Photographing in a practice of non-attachment, the forms reveal the hidden truths of my journey. Healing occurs of absolute necessity. Creating space for where one is without trying to change the experience is essential to a true traveler’s journey through suffering.

“And they who have considered all the contrasts on this earth, and is no more disturbed by anything whatever in the world, the Peaceful One, freed from rage, from sorrow, and from longing, they have passed beyond birth and decay.”

~ Siddhartha Gautama Buddha