SPAROWE: October 2009

I am compelled to make images. I am always experimenting, always the student. When I work it reminds me that there are a lot of beautiful things that go unnoticed to myself and others in this world. I get satisfaction knowing that after I have taken a photograph, I get to express that beauty in any way I see fit in the fine print. I have a unique relationship with “the process.” I listen to it as much as it relinquishes control to me. It’s important for me to establish this relationship with anything I make. It’s a personalization. And, if, serendipity makes its way into the process, it‘s a blessing from wherever it comes.
I inherited 75% of my photographic equipment from my Uncle Wes. He was an artist and a master photographer. I grew up around his images in my parents' house and at the creek house where my grandmother resides. He has been a huge inspiration for me, gave me my first copy of James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” and gave me drawing lessons via mail when I was 12. After he passed away from cancer in 2000, I was introduced to a close friend of his (Bobby Green(BEBO)) who taught me a great deal about art through the ideas that my uncle had embraced and taught. Our correspondences and visits were invaluable in my approach. You don’t do art, art does you.
My current work involves large format handmade glass plate negatives that I make silver gelatin prints with. Making my own glass plate negatives has been something I have always had an interest in. I own a boxful of glass plates that my great, great grandmother made at the turn of the century, and ever since acquiring them I have been drawn to the imprecise nature and handmade quality of this process.
I am starting a project called “Deep in the Woods.” Images(glass plates, silver gelatin prints) of trees, brush, earth, flowers, and anything I come across on my walks in areas of land that haven’t been tampered with and not too many people see. I also continue doing portraiture, landscapes, still life and other work on a daily basis.