The Evolution of an Artist Statement

I began the Burn work over 5 years ago. As many of you know, it coincided with my sister's first chemotherapy treatment. For the first 2 years of the project, I couldn't / did not want to, make the connection or discuss it in my artist statement.

Burn No. 21

Artist Statement Version #1

While accompanying restoration ecologists on prescribed burns, I am drawn to the ephemeral quality of a single moment when life and death do not seem opposed to each other, but are parts of a single process to be accepted as a whole.

The Burn series evolved from my ongoing interest in life cycles. Controlled burns imitate naturally occurring fires by removing accumulated dead vegetation and releasing seeds from dormancy. By opening the woodlands to more sunlight, the fires prepare the soil for new spring growth, and the cycle of renewal continues.

Burn No.74

After attending an artist residency with many writers, I was convinced that my sister's illness was a very important part of this work, and that I needed to include it in my statement.

Artist statment version #2
   While accompanying restoration ecologists on prescribed prairie burns, I am drawn to the ephemeral quality of the single moment when life and death are not opposites, but rather parts of a single process to be embraced as a whole.

As fate would have it, this project began on the same day (and actual hour) of my sister’s first chemotherapy treatment, having just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The parallels between the burn and chemotherapy were immediately revealed to me as I photographed with my sister in my heart and mind.

Burning helps reduce invasive vegetation that crowd out native plants, allowing sunlight to reach the seedlings. By opening the woodlands to more daylight, the fires prepare the soil for new spring growth, and the cycle of renewal continues. So too, chemotherapy removes unwanted growth, allowing for new healthy cells to reestablish themselves. It with this deeper understanding of the life cycle that these images were created.

And then I went to Fotofest where I met a curator who said that the artist statement did not really reflect what she was seeing in the work. I let this feedback simmer for a few months. I knew she was right and struggled with how to rewrite the statement. I worked on it on and off and nothing was coming to me. I could "feel" it but not articulate it.

I then had a very interesting conversation this summer with 2 dear friends who both completed their PHD's in art history. To my utter surprise, one friend said, and I quote, "It is not the job of the artist to write about the work. The job of the artist is just to make the work. Writing about it should be left to others." 

You can't imagine the weight that was lifted from my shoulders. I felt liberated....only I still didn't  have a statement that could guide the viewer.  My other friend offered to write the statement for me. I can't tell you how appreciative and grateful I was.  

I am thrilled to finally have an accurate and articulate statement which accompanies the work as I send it out into the world.

Burn No. 96

Final Artist Statement

These photographs are part of a series begun in 2007 when I observed my first controlled prairie burn. I was immediately struck by the burn’s visual and expressive potential, as well as the way it evoked themes that are at the core of my photographic work.  A controlled burn is deliberately set; its violent, destructive force reduces invasive vegetation so that native plants can continue to prosper.  The elements of the burn—the mysterious luminosity, the smoke that both obscures and reveals—suggest a liminal space, a zone of ambiguity where destruction merges with renewal.  These images of regenerative destruction have a personal significance—I photographed my first burn at the same time my sister began a course of chemotherapy—yet they constitute a universal metaphor:  the moment when life and death are not contradictory but are perceived as a single process to be embraced as a whole. 

Burn No. 48

Thank you Debbie!