Speaking Surfaces captures a life presence found in rocks, streams, puddles, leaves, and other earthly environments. Very little post image processing. Compositions composed by camera angle and working with time of day.

Speaking Surfaces Exhibition.
Stevenson University 2015

(14) Archival Pigment Prints.
Mounted on Sintra. 48"x 36"

I transformed Stevenson's University gallery into a ‘living’ space full of windows that open into worlds of colorful, figurative, textural, and atmospheric scenes. I provided a calming, yet energetic, sanctuary where viewers were transported into mysterious, unbelievable, and extraordinary places.

This series portrays an existence of figurative beings, landscapes, and dream realities that can be found by closely observing the surfaces of the natural world. These prints capture the life presence found in rocks, streams, puddles, leaves, and other organic places. This body of photographs began in the mountains of Northwestern Vermont in 2011 and continues into the parks of Central and Western Maryland.

Very little post image processing was used to create these prints. Compositions were composed by camera angles, point of view, and working with the time of day.

Speaking Surfaces captures a life presence found in rocks, streams, puddles, leaves, and other earthly environments. Very little post image processing. Compositions composed by camera angle and working with time of day.

I've spent many years walking around the streets of Baltimore looking for signs of the cosmos, and vast landscapes in gutters, alleys, sidewalks, streets, puddles, and other post-industrial surfaces.

I've exhibited these images as large-scale prints, and also integrated them into mixed-media installations.

Stream box was created with a cardboard box taped shut with a multi layered video looping inside. Viewers can hear layers of flowing water from outside of the sculpture.

Stream Box is usually placed on a floor. Participants hear water sounds and eventually end up on their knees looking through the hole.

This piece incorporates an I Pod Nano to illustrate sound and visual motion.

Stream Box can be placed in a variety of environments such as: sidewalks, steps, closets, and many other unassuming locations. It can be operated on a continuous loop with an electrical outlet for long periods of time. It can also function using the device's battery power. For example: It can be displayed on public transportation, in parks, or other public locations.

I began Self Walk in the second floor hallway in an old convent-turned-artist-studio building. I placed the video camera on a tripod at the end of the hallway and played Japanese Kyoto music in the background, which is very meditative and serene with a bittersweet energy. I took off all of my clothes and went to the other end of the hallway with a one hundred watt light bulb attached to a lighting device and a fifty-foot extension cord. My goal was to experiment with the hallway setting. The music created a transcendental mood, and as I became more focused on the sound, I began to reflect that mood with my body. I imagined the hallway as a place for inner transformation, the long narrow passage resembling a portal or funnel to concentrate and aid the conversion of energy from one place to another. Similarly, the hallway acted as a bridge from one level of consciousness or self-identity to another.
The multi-layering in the video piece is symbolic of mental states and belief systems, and of identity undergoing metamorphosis. The slow movements of my body in the beginning of the video represent a metaphysical incubation period. As the sound became louder my movements became faster, and I simultaneously moved from one end of the hallway to the other in an attempt to symbolize spiritual metamorphosis. My ritualistic dance, with a light bulb close to my head and bowing body in the foreground, reflects the fruit of that spiritual transformation. I represent a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon, while the light symbolizes my inner glow and the bowing acts as a sign of respect for the viewer. The clips that happen simultaneously while I am dancing in the foreground reflect memory of the old self and symbolize the path, the journey, and the transformation to the new self. The exit sign in the top right corner of the composition represents escape – not only from that hallway, but also from stagnant belief systems of the old self.

Cardboard Bodhi was a multimedia exhibition that utilized installation/sculpture, video, performance, cardboard boxes, digital photography, and other materials to portray complex perceptions. Inspired by pollution, consumption, poverty, religion, and mental illness, I created a space that challenged the viewer to be both introspective and to view the world differently. The title of the show, Cardboard Bodhi, was a reference to two concepts. Cardboard is a symbol of modern consumption and waste ? it is a temporal material that is used to contain objects and, at times, provides shelter for homeless people. Bodhi means "enlightenment" in the Buddhist tradition, and together, the terms refer to finding beauty within the ugly and finding peace and epiphanies in undesirable places.

Digital Video