Celebrating the release of Occupied, prints were showcased from the book in a 2 week pop up exhibit at Jack Ludlam’s 1615 Gallery. Kicking off on April 1st, some fun was had with the holiday combined with the function of the urinals, calling the event No Fooling Only Flushing.
Prints were showcased in 3 sizes:
32x44” in an edition of 5
20x28” in an edition of 15
12x16” in an edition of 30
Music has a wonderful ability to make us happier, put a bounce in our step, especially when we sing it aloud or hear it live – it sparks joy and warms our souls. Whether you sing alone or together with friends, family, even complete strangers, #CITYSINGALONG was meant to encourage impromptu song to be shared with one and all.
While music venues were closed during the pandemic, I partnered with Redline Contemporary Art Center through their Checking In initiative to place posters outside music venues throughout Denver and Boulder which featured a QR code. When the code was scanned you were directed to citysingalong.com and presented with a karaoke style video featuring the Bill Withers classic Lean On Me and showcasing a photo of the word Call from my Collecting Words series.
As we were all without live music at the time, the intent was to call attention to the venues and artist who were struggling to get by and could use our support until we were able to come together for live music again. To provide this support, the site included a link to donate to musicians and venues through the Colorado Music Relief Fund with the hope that we could do our part to help to keep live music alive and well.
Goodnight Denver is a series of bedtime stories created from photos of words found scrawled across pavement, handwritten on walls, and displayed on signage from Denver and across the country. The words in the images are thoughtfully linked together to create a series of short stories to be shared with the city of Denver as the sun sets and bedtime looms. As each page turns, a quiet pause allows the viewer to absorb the image, evoking the childhood nostalgia of being read to before bed.
One of 8 artists chosen for Side Stories RiNo 2019, the stories were projected nightly on the wall of the “rust house” March 1st-10th in Denver’s RiNo neighborhood.
Collecting Words is an ongoing project of mine. I capture images of words; single words, phrases, words in graffiti, signage, all kinds of words found across the United States and the world. In 2015 I worked with New Heroes & Pioneers and used some of the 700+ words I have collected to create a book of (very) short (visual) stories. Using the words in the photos to create short narratives, in a refrigerator magnet poetry style. 'Collecting Words' in book form can be purchased here: bookshop.org
To peruse more of my collection you can visit: collectingwords.com
I wrote some things about the experience on Medium: Stories You See: How I Published a Book From an Instagram #tag
The book and project also got some love from Cool Hunting and Lenscratch.
This piece was created for the ‘Delirium, Three Visions’ exhibition at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver as part of Month of Photography 2019. I selected 32 of my photos that included words I felt exemplified or evoked delirium. I then photographed 8 people and their reactions to the photo of these words. Isolating their eyes and mouth they were displayed on a stack of old televisions as looping video accompanied by the words they reacted to. The video would speed and slow creating a sense of delirium for the viewer sucking them in visually the way watching TV tends to suck us all in at times.
A sped up version of the piece in darkness can be viewed here: instagram.com/BvkGjSEl1uS
Review: Delirium, Three Visions Shows Trends in Photography...and MoP
There’s a brawl going on in the photography world, and this Denver exhibit gives you a ringside seat
Working with The Oxford Hotel through NineDotArts I created a window display to help with the promotion of wedding season for the Summer of 2018. The vintage televisions tapped into the history and nostalgia of the hotel and displaying a video montage of photographs made up of words that evoked the spirit and emotions of a wedding. Ranging, from words of “love”, to words of commitment, such as “yes”, and words that encompass the entirety of a wedding day, like “memories”. Feeding off of the words and the wedding theme, a montage of found footage featuring scenes of dancing and good times were displayed on the television above the radio. Mirrors expressing words of celebration and commitment gave those passing by the opportunity to see themselves in this moment. As a final touch, a flower arrangement, candelabra, and wine glasses further accented the scene.
This slide projector piece was part of the RedLine Contemporary Art Center’s 6th Annual Juried Exhibition ’Was it Worth it?’. I took 80 words I photographed in 2018 from my ongoing Collecting Words project and organized them into a stream of consciousness. The sequence became a human dialogue that represented a year of my life, evoking the range of emotions, feelings, and experiences a human may encounter over the span of 365 days.
I created this piece to be a part of ‘FLIP’ the Fall 2017 Exhibition at Boulder Creative Collective. I put together 8 new stories from photos in my Collecting Words project. The theme of these stories was meant to portray a positive tone about being a good person to align wit the shows theme of social change. The stories were projected from an old Bausch & Lomb slide projector onto an assemblage of miscellaneous/discarded construction material found around the premises of the Collective.
For ‘Raspberry Pi’, Boulder Creative Collective’s 2016 Spring Exhibition, I created ‘The Living Room’. Utilizing vintage TVs and furniture I created an installation that allowed people to comfortably sit and watch the TVs that were playing the stories from my book ‘Collecting Words’ in a slide show style format. The vintage installation enhanced the nostalgia I was finding the stories evoked and gave people the opportunity to reflect on new and old memories.
