Publications and Projects

Thursday Garden Project

On every Thursday for the past year (April 2009-April 2010), I have been visually documenting my perennial garden, tracking its seasonal progression and transitions. I decided to start this project when I moved back into my parents house at the ripe age of twenty three, out of financial necessity. The seasonal changes and the weekly routine became a source of comfort outside myself–to observe living things morph, die, blossom, and seed…I was surprised by how much change can take place in a week, even if the changes are subtle. The Thursday Garden Project is a perennial reminder that change is consistent in its unpredictability, and tides will turn…even with deeply set roots. A lot has come and gone for me in the past year, but the garden still remains.

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Poetry Project With Lisa

My friend Lisa introduced me to the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program. This year’s Poet Laureate, Mark DeCarteret, invited poets and artists to collaborate  on a postcard project called “Wish You Were Here”. Lisa wrote a poem for me on the back of a blank postcard. She mailed it to me with the hope that I would create a piece of art on the other side, inspired by her poem. And I did! What a fun idea that can stretch even beyond the deadline for the project.

Featured Artist in February 2010

I was the featured artist at The Good Tern Cafe in Rockland, Maine for the month of February 2010. This article was printed in The Free Press. If you would like to watch a slideshow containing more photos from this series, click here. Below is my artist’s statement.

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Cow -Themed Catharsis

I have loved cows since I was two years old. Growing up next door to a retired dairy farmer in Somerville, Maine, I spent hours roaming fields with the cows that the farmer boarded for other dairymen. My old neighbor’s name is Don Hewett, but I called him Tractor. No matter how many times my parents told me it was rude, the name made sense to me because it seemed he spent most of his time riding old John Deere tractors. The name has stuck. Tractor is now 87 years old, and we are still close friends. He is still Tractor. And I still want to spend every moment of the day with cows.

The cows in these photos belonged to another dairy farming friend of mine, Wayne Cunningham. I’ve worked off and on for Wayne milking cows since I was in 8^th grade. I bought my first pet cow from him when I was in 6^th grade and resold her to Wayne when I was in 8^th grade.

The cows pictured in this series are from Wayne’s most recent herd, which was sold in the summer of 2009 due to the economic situation and a very poor haying season. Over 80 of the bovine girls were sent to slaughter in Pennsylvania with funding coming from a dairy farming cooperative called Cooperatives Working Together. (Their website is www.cwt.coop.)   I urge everyone to research this subject. Having been personally attached and connected to the cows, I found this financing of mass slaughter traumatizing. I hope my photos convey my love for these creatures as well as reveal the intelligence I believe they possess as a species.

I became interested in photography when I took a black and white photo class with Ken Martin while a student at Medomak Valley High School. I discovered digital when my high school Humanities teacher and mentor, Chuck Boothby, let me borrow his digital SLR camera. In college I took only one photography class while I explored other media, but I still carried my camera with me everywhere. Most recently I did a semester at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland where I spent three months photographing Joe Miller, a homeless man bound to a wheelchair, with a place on the sex offender registry, a tendency to dress in women’s clothing, and a long history of mental illness. During this time I also did a shorter documentary on the Short-nosed Sturgeon population in the Penobscot River.

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Literary Review

Below is a review of my graphic novel, Fair to Middlin’.

The review is written by Maine poet Candice Stover.

Contact me for a copy of Fair to Middlin’.

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The Times Record

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Woolwich Days

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Making Strides Breast Cancer Walk

Visit the Making Strides website to find a walk near you.

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The Bollard Cover Story

Read the interview with Joe Miller at The Bollard online.

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When The Dairy Runs Dry

Click the photo to visit In The Fray Magazine. Read my article and view the slideshow!

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Shoots and Leaves

A quick video of  my Thursday Garden Project (from April 2009 up through September 2009) can be viewed at In The Fray Magazine online.

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Self Publishing–My Book

$20 can get you a copy of my photography book about Joe Miller.

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Salt Institute for Documentary Studies

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Animations

I created these animated shorts  junior year at College of the Atlantic in an Animation class with Nancy Andrews.  I see all sorts of things I would do differently now (especially in the second one “A Journey Through Dementia Dimensions”…the beginning is WAY too long with the squirrel replaying over and over…stick with it though, there’s a plot twist). For the love of learning give ‘em a look as they are.