Vue du Lac/Lakeview
The source material for Lakeview came from a Brownie camera box I found in an antique store in San Francisco. The box contained hundreds of 3 × 5-inch negatives, each carefully catalogued by location and year by an unknown photographer. The negatives, dating from 1929 to 1959, represent the work of a lifetime.
I am fascinated by the idea that this unknown photographer chose to travel to places such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and England at a time when World War II was raging. As the new owner of this body of work, I chose to focus on what I perceived as beautiful, quiet views of large bodies of water.
I am drawn to the potential of an art practice that raises consciousness about the layers that surround us—about new ways of calling attention to the passages between the old and the new, and of weaving the memory of an old place into a new one.
At the heart of Lakeview is an examination of our transitory passage through life. I explore the perceived truth of the photograph and the way photography is often used as a shield against death. A photograph can summon not only the memory of a particular person who has passed from this earth, but also entire groups of people, places, and vanished moments.
By mining the memories that a photograph can conjure, I explore the significance of photography in our understanding of memory, loss, history, culture, and place.
History known is a good thing. History shared is far more satisfying—and far more far-reaching.