As 2020 begins, I find myself at a crossroads as an artist. I feel like I’m in a good place in a photographic sense with a few years of productive work behind me and the desire to continue making work. Every photograph and every exploration makes me want to make more. The trick is always finding the time and money to do so.
My goal in the coming year is to take a step (or two) towards sharing my photographs to an audience outside of what I have been doing over the past five years or so. I want to exhibit again and focus on putting my Oglala photographs together into the series I’ve been imagining since I first visited the panhandle so many years ago. There are just so many unseen images that I can’t wait to share for the first time.
A look back at 2019…
The year got off to a very slow start due to very snowy and cold weather all the way until the end of March. It wasn't until the first week of April until I made it out for an overnight trip to eastern South Dakota. The weather was wet and foggy, perfect for interesting images.
I visited Chadron and the panhandle in spring for the first time, in early May. There was only one problem - the aforementioned snow melted and a lot of rain fell, leaving the gravel roads and grassland paths washed out and dangerously muddy. Despite getting nearly stuck several times and a weird incident with mud inside the wheels causing a violent vibration above 30 miles per hour, the trip was a success, and I captured the Oglala National Grasslands and surrounding areas in a very different mood. This is also when I became obsessed with the wide 16:9 aspect ratio, something that continued throughout the year.
I continue to work on a project of Kansas photographs that I’ve been calling The Sunflower Blues. While much of what I’ve been working on has been black-and-white, these images are in color. It’s one of those on-going projects just waiting for that ah-ha moment where something clicks and the whole endeavor makes sense.
Speaking of moments of clarity, I had one while driving along the Oklahoma panhandle over the 4th of July weekend. I’ve been photographing the Great Plains for a number of years, usually without a specific direction, and realized that I could tie it all together into one big idea.
“Everything gets gone sooner or later. It’s the lay of the land. Things become extinct.”
This idea continued into a week in August spent exploring the northern reaches of the Great Plains - Montana, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming. There was tire trouble, I got an exceptionally painful sore throat, and I made a lot of photographs that I’m excited about. Driving over 3000 miles through the vastness of this part of the country gives a person a lot of time to think, and a potential title for all of these photographs stuck with me.
Everything Gets Gone
The title comes from two influences on my work - an episode of Northern Exposure (“Things Go Extinct”) and a William Elliott Whitmore song.
I visited with my Grandfather for the last time in October, and drove the long way home across the northern edge of Iowa to have some time with myself. 2019 was a year of endings for me as three grandparents passed away, all of which played an important role in my life and the person I’ve become.
My last trek of the year was to central Nebraska in early November to revisit a few places and explore some new discoveries - two churches far away from any paved highway, standing alone on what has always felt like the beginning of the west to me.
Here’s to a successful and inspiration-filled 2020!