Artist Statement
"This project as seen started with one image.
The Old Idaho State Penitentiary was the site. The witness room of the Execution Chamber the location. One small window looking out.
The shadow of a basketball standard on an empty prison yard.
The first of what was to be HOOPS, an exploration. A trip into barns, yards, garages and fields. A visit to a world of aspiration and hope, of youthful dreams and bitter failure.
These basketball hoops put up for kids to play with, farmhands to keep occupied while waiting for a grain wagon or load of hay - were the subject matter. Sculpted by light, location and weather they remain. Silent and gradually decaying via wind, water and time.
I enter with a camera and an idea quietly shaping the quest for meaning in images devoid of people. The suggestion of activity in silence.
Gradually the idea took shape and images presented themselves before my lens.
Images that, at times seemed to jump out of the day as I chanced upon a basketball standard. Others dimly seen in passing and only recognized after many visits, finally to reveal subject matter worth stopping for. Still others seen clearly, yet not realized until weather and light and opportunity combined for an image worth the effort.
Night skies, morning dew - an animal emphasizing the playground nature of the quest. Hay and farm machinery and winter winds in sub zero temperatures. The net made of baling twine... the bare rim, the shadow.
HOOPS, images of dreams, hopes and daily life. Tangible reminders of youth too quickly gone, friendships of the past pushed aside by the demands of the day.
I stop and I photograph. Seeking quiet, the memory of days long gone. These remnants of life once seemingly important. Totems of happiness and friendship and effort. All in images seen and felt as I photograph, as I print and as I exhibit them."
The Old Idaho State Penitentiary was the site. The witness room of the Execution Chamber the location. One small window looking out.
The shadow of a basketball standard on an empty prison yard.
The first of what was to be HOOPS, an exploration. A trip into barns, yards, garages and fields. A visit to a world of aspiration and hope, of youthful dreams and bitter failure.
These basketball hoops put up for kids to play with, farmhands to keep occupied while waiting for a grain wagon or load of hay - were the subject matter. Sculpted by light, location and weather they remain. Silent and gradually decaying via wind, water and time.
I enter with a camera and an idea quietly shaping the quest for meaning in images devoid of people. The suggestion of activity in silence.
Gradually the idea took shape and images presented themselves before my lens.
Images that, at times seemed to jump out of the day as I chanced upon a basketball standard. Others dimly seen in passing and only recognized after many visits, finally to reveal subject matter worth stopping for. Still others seen clearly, yet not realized until weather and light and opportunity combined for an image worth the effort.
Night skies, morning dew - an animal emphasizing the playground nature of the quest. Hay and farm machinery and winter winds in sub zero temperatures. The net made of baling twine... the bare rim, the shadow.
HOOPS, images of dreams, hopes and daily life. Tangible reminders of youth too quickly gone, friendships of the past pushed aside by the demands of the day.
I stop and I photograph. Seeking quiet, the memory of days long gone. These remnants of life once seemingly important. Totems of happiness and friendship and effort. All in images seen and felt as I photograph, as I print and as I exhibit them."
Touring Schedule
Cando Art Center
February 1-28, 2019
Dickinson State University
October 1-31, 2019
The Arts Center
December 12, 2019 - January 18, 2020
February 1-28, 2019
Dickinson State University
October 1-31, 2019
The Arts Center
December 12, 2019 - January 18, 2020
Minot State University, 500 University Ave W, Minot, ND 58707 | (701) 858-3242
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NDAGA is sponsored in part with funds from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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