Untitled ©Reed Mattison
Bio
Reed Mattison is a photographer and writer from Bowling Green, Kentucky. He earned his bachelor’s degree in photojournalism from Western Kentucky University. Reed grew up in southern Kentucky spending his childhood outdoors on family farms, spring creeks, and the karst hills that would come to influence his visual aesthetic. His semi-rural upbringing and education in the immigrant resettlement town of Bowling Green provided a racially and culturally diverse community that was formative to his photographic philosophy and class consciousness.
Now based in Jackson, Wyoming, his long-term film photography focuses on themes of community, memory, and sense of place.
When he isn’t making photographs with his neighbors, Reed is a babysitter, bike mechanic, and teacher.
Description of Work
The images are from an ongoing, film based project “to and from.” I relocated to Wyoming for a job in the journalism industry in 2021. I quickly discovered that traditional journalistic dogma was not in line with how and why I wanted to make pictures. So now I’ve estranged myself from a region and culture that is deeply ingrained in me for a career path that personally was the wrong direction.
Twice a year I’ll load up my car and drive through the Heartland back home to the South. These intimate trips back home are when I feel I make my most meaningful images. They have become a way for me to unpack my estrangement, investigate a place I thought I knew, and bring new love to the region I called home for 25 years.
Unlike some of my peers, I never hated Kentucky. Despite our flaws and growth we have yet to do, I always felt it was part of me, and I, part of it. However it wasn’t until my leaving and subsequent photography of my trips home that I discovered how deeply we are connected. And that discovery process will have no end.
There are a couple quotes I always carry with me as I make photographs. One is from a guest speaker we had in undergrad whose name escapes me. They told us, “be good where you are.” In this context they were encouraging us that moving to New York or Los Angeles was not the answer to our creative success, but by doing our best wherever we may be. The other comes from a dear friend and fellow artist, Frank Armstrong. As a tattoo artist he said, “if you take care of tattooing, it will take care of you,” and I substitute that with photography. And surely as I pour more into the relationships I have with my subjects, the more they pour into me. I hate to even refer to them as subjects because they are my friends and are the most fulfilling connections I have.
In photographing for “to and from” I’ve learned that Kentucky is my fate. I was not wrong for leaving, and you are not wrong for wanting to leave a place. What I am learning is where I belong, and I hope through these images there is a homecoming.
wrmattphoto@gmail.com
