July 2014
Artist’s Statement
The Deep South is a watery place, marked by swamps, bayous, coastal marshes and bays. The land itself has been shaped, and is continually re-shaped, by its myriad streams and rivers, a vast watershed that ultimately empties into the Gulf. In country so flat, flowing waters acquire sinuosity. They contrive to find the fastest, steepest route by actively meandering, snaking their way down the land. Witness it all from the air: curls within curves within bends, and at every turn a cut bank faces a crescent sandbar. Rivers also hasten by bypassing their loops; in doing so they shed oxbow lakes. Our waters signal the round of the year, individually and variously rising, flooding, falling, slowing, some bayous stagnating in the summer heat. Most streams and rivers bear their original names, wonderful to say aloud as we swim, canoe, or simply cross a bridge: Okatoma, Bogue Chitto, Tallahatchie, Tangipahoa. Where in America but in the Deep South could waters like these be found?
Biography
I am a landscape photographer living in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I like to photograph the commonplace, working mostly in black-and-white, and I intend the images to be simple and straightforward. My work has been shown in many juried and curated exhibitions and is represented in private and public collections in the South, including those of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and the University of Kentucky Art Museum.
