Back Home

Maybe you really cant go back home again, at least to some degree. West Virginia and the area where I grew up has always been a huge source of inspiration for me and how I make art work, and it still is, but I have felt over the past few years more and more removed from it. I love being there with my family and friends, but I don’t think I feel as compelled to be a part of the culture anymore, or at least as much as I was at one point. I feel absolutely embedded with it, but what I remember and associate with it seems to be shifting. Not just in terms of people’s political stance or ideas of red vs blue, but how they live and where they live. Many of the people I know have moved away or moved into town and it feels….. more bland? (for the lack of a better term). I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but something feels off more engrained in the real world outside of Appalachia. The population in general has gotten older, and more crotchety. The people have seemingly moved closer together in a move of convince.  It all just feels less magical somehow, less connected. The tension between people seems higher and it feels like people are more reluctant to tolerate one another. That was always such a staple of the culture for me, the connectedness of it all, and one I still hold dear. So when I see that drifting away I get concerned. I’m not sure I even know why. It could be that I’m just feeling disconnected and people aren’t less apt to look out for one another, or maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety too. I will never be sure but something feels off.

With that said I still do find so much beauty and things to wax poetically about back home. I think less about the culture now adays, which I still love and claim, and more about the landscape and the mystery of the place. I find some of the cryptid monster stuff a little much sometimes, but for the most part I get it. I can see how that landscape warrants the imagination of stories and monsters and lore. I love that, but as far as documenting what is actually there…. I feel less compelled. I have fits and spurts, but I feel I found what I was looking for with that. I feel I made peace with that side of my identity. I have so many other things that interest now that compel me to make art.

I find myself drawn to slowing down and experience things, not thinking about them, but experiencing them. that is very difficult for me. I have always been someone who plans and controls things in my work, but this new way of working feels exciting and different. It has become a welcomed challenge to try and simply not think. I feel enthusiastic to photograph again and like the process is brand new. I think for a long time it was just a tool to create something. I didn’t find it either appealing or unappealing, it is just what I did. Now I find myself really enjoying the process, and I feel like it is starting to show in the work.