​This is my experience.

about process 

illusions and introspections

of a wandering heart

between darkness and light

capturing nuance

in search of balance

I am an alchemical process photographer.
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This is both a physical and emotional descriptor.
Alchemy happens in the developing of chemicals into images, and in the small moments
that create pivotal life changes, only recognizable as important turning points long after.

Alchemy is the creation of something new out of once separate compounds;
it occurs when a lived out experience combines with a photographic image in the mind to become something tangible, a carved mark on a metal plate, a network of lines on a piece of paper, the mirror images of negative and print.

My work aims to show the alchemy of light and dark that creates inner and outer realities,
the often opposing forces that form stark landscapes both within and around us.

In this process and processing, I look inward to my own original blueprinting,
to the childhood trauma that has created the valleys, ranges and deserts of my psyche.
I see it as a microcosm of the physical geography we inhabit; as a species we act out
personal pains and joys in our relationship with the land, either working with or
damning the flows of the natural world.

Learning to see reality in grayscale is a grounding practice.
Trauma leads us to be observers and translators, taking everything and turning it into
black and white. Through compassion we learn to see multiple shades of nuance.

The magic of emotional alchemy becomes possible when as an artist, I take the scars from early trauma and turn them into roadways, paths that lead me to healing.

As an alchemical photographer, that moment of transformation occurs when the emotional becomes physical. There’s something about the transformation of metal that takes place in the printmaking process that makes it real.
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I process in the emotional world, but I create prints in the physical one.

Artist Statement

Flickr

snakes shed skin
while blind
to emerge 
transformed

my end is my beginning