I work with a family of four-inch dolls mass-produced in the 1950s—the embodiment of an idealized middle-class culture, now relegated to attics and tag sales. Once models of conformity, years of handling have worn away their veneer of polite reserve and privilege, and the contrast between their formal clothing and scarred bodies is both poignant and symbolic.
That dichotomy between perfectly curated public lives and private lives filled with anger, confusion, and despair is central to my work, as it is to understanding not only their era, but increasingly, our own. Once the silent keepers of secrets, this doll family reveals the turmoil under carefully constructed facades.
Tied closely to the natural world, my project gathers strength from multiple streams of images, collected into an interlocking series of portfolios. What began as a river of individual stories has grown into an ocean of broken lives and communities, faces hidden and exposed, and visions that address both personal and cultural, histories and concerns.
Working outdoors, following the seasons, water animates my work as it animates all life. Whether liquid or frozen, in droplets or ponds, it serves as both metaphor and lens. Worn remnants of plastic are transformed when fractured through panes of ice, reflected in liquid windows, or swathed in sodden leaves or petals. Intuitive, improvised, my photographs are created in-camera, in available light, using real objects.
Beneath roiling currents and breaking waves, the undertow takes us down to where the truth lies.