Homework: Photographs from Taos, New Mexico
2004 - continuing
Homework is a study of our imperative to site our lives within a landscape, to belong to a place and people.
I make portraits of houses; houses alone, in clusters, all within a landscape. Each shelter is a metaphor for its inhabitants whose hopes, values and histories are written in adobe, wood, paint and peel. I photograph houses under construction, newly finished, in their prime, maintained, modified, deteriorated, abandoned, eroded and finally gone.
Taos, New Mexico is well suited for this study of the dynamic and perennial process of homemaking. Its cultural history is rich with waves of immigrants each successively altering the built environment. First Native Americans, then Colonial Spanish and later Anglo settlers were lured by the promise of security, stability and prosperity. Most recently artists, hippies, healers, environmentalists and affluent baby boomers seek to be at home amid clean air, open spaces and majestic vistas.
Taos' ancient geological land formations and numinous light ofter a context for and counterpoint to our transient residency.
