massachusetts
I am without armour at this juncture. And yet I feel protected, prepared, Jason's music so prevalent every step of my journey, his spirit an apotropaic force in my life.. Every corner I turn, there he is.
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I've been working on an ongoing series since my move back to MA in 2010 on the North Shore, and Route 1 specifically. In preparation for my trip up North for the next few weeks I've been sequencing some of my favorite pictures, and thinking about where I want to make photographs while I'm there. This triptych is from a section of Route 1 (Newbury St.) between Peabody and Lynnfield.
A few weeks ago I took a walk in Maudslay State Park under the supermoon with some old friends and some new ones. I'm never quite prepared for how exquisite a very full moon is, and how the silvery light casts chiaroscuro shadows and illuminates everything. I was also unprepared for how immensely full the Merrimack River was. So swollen from the pull of the close moon, the river was high and fast, carrying huge branches and whole trees and debris. Ever a fan of night exposures, I made some long exposures on our walk.
On this particular day, after six or so hours of teaching art outside, in Maudslay, to tykes and teens alike, my assistant Stephanie and I decided to walk back down to the fairy pond to where we had come across an owl pellet earlier in the day. A "nature moment" as I am prone to call any time our outdoor classroom yields unexpected learning opportunities, the owl pellet allowed us to explain how the scatological cycle of owls differed from that of other birds the kids were used to, and from themselves, for that matter. Unfortunately I was ill-prepared to dissect the pellet with the kids, so Stephanie and I went to retrieve the bones later in the day.
We brought my Graflex along, as Stephanie is an aspiring photographer and had never really shot any film before. After collecting the tiny bones from the owl pellet, I explained the basics of large-format film and operating a light-meter to her, and let Steph shoot a couple of sheets with my 4x5".
Right before we left to head back to the Gatehouse, I laid down on the ground and took the above image looking up into the pines.
{pictures of the owl pellet and some of my kids' Andy Goldsworthy-inspired environmental sculpture}
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Sunday Morning I surprised Ryan and took him on an Adventure up the North Shore. We started our day at Todd Farm, where we got some great crates for my art closet and organizing, and some hand carved wooden letters: L & R. {This place is amazing… but my advice is to get there at early as possible. By noon, half of the vendors are usually packing up, so I’d shoot for 8-9am as the prime-time to arrive.} After Todd Farm, we stopped at Tendercrop on the way to Maudslay to pick up some picnic supplies. We got blackberries, buffalo jerky, spindrift sodas, apples, kale chips, and probably something else I’m forgetting.
Read MoreWhen I set out to go back to school a few years ago, I had an abstract idea of how it was going to work. This was while I was still in Asheville, had a stable job, car, apartment, and boyfriend.
[CHELSEA]
Things change.
As I write this, I am still out of breath from running from the North Station Green Line stop to the Commuter Rail. The 4:25 train was luckily running two minutes late, and as I sprinted
[RIVER WORKS]
toward Track 2, out of breath (literally panting), slightly dizzy from the two Lagunitas IPAs that I imbibed with my steadily growing
[LYNN]
group of lovely transfer non-trad student friends at the Pig,
[SWAMPSCOTT]
I took a second to think about how absurd this whole thing is. Meaning: 2 years ago, I could not have possibly designed this life. It continues to be baffling, frightening, and slightly sickening to be where I am compared to where I was.
[SALEM]
To be clear, every day there is a bigger knot in my stomach which reminds me of what has been lost. I miss Asheville immensely. I miss certain individuals who have either passed on or passed out of my life
[BEVERLY]
for some or no particular reason, more than words can possibly explain. In the light drizzle, while I am walking down Huntington or Mass Ave. I think of things I want to tell you, each of you, all of you, and it’s impossible.
[NORTH BEVERLY]
Exactly 2 years ago, I was living on Cumberland, contemplating a move though I didn’t know where. I still had certain aspects of what I considered at the time to be identifying factors of who I was as an individual: a fully formed person. Flash forward
[HAMILTON/WENHAM]
one month: I was broke, packing my life into a 5′x10′ storage unit on Tunnel Road. Flash forward another month: deeply mourning the loss of a lover, of my innocence, the shattering of whatever semblance of a life I thought I had built,
[IPSWICH]
the family who had substituted for my.. well.. difficult family, everything fragmenting and breaking apart. Then, before I knew it, I was gone. And here I
[ROWLEY]
am. Finally healing from the insurmountable expanse of change, still battling the same bad habits, still trying to keep myself from splitting at the seams while being surrounded by such immense beauty and
{oh god the mist over the marsh right now, could quite possibly be one of the most heartbreakingly exquisite.. and then when I discovered how to ride my bike to the train tracks which cut through the marsh, that night with the sunset and the supermoon..}
and
and
[NEWBURYPORT]
it has been three weeks since I started relying on Public Transportation, and the Romance is still alive and well.
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