WILL’S STRAIT SUITE

The photographic lens is a tool I use to explore concepts of abstraction, broadening my depth of looking, and seeing through visual engagement with form, structure, and light while walking and thinking about places that surround my life — from atmospheric portraits of cloud formations, to woods and waterways, to architecture, wildlife, and personal histories. Human ecologies insist that we are an accumulation of our influences (Yuriko Saito), fascinations and memories, and the phenomena of the physical world looms large and persistent. For me, the indiscriminate act of taking photographs has captured a certain aspect of these components, and in so contextualized my painting practice.

Will’s Strait Suite is composed of photographs taken while walking between Orr’s Island and Bailey Island in the town of Harpswell, Maine. The black and white images were printed on Moab paper, mounted on wood panels, and overpainted in oil. From Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine, the Harpswell Islands comprise over two hundred miles of rugged, shoal-laden coastline and nearly ninety-eight off-shore islands. Will’s Strait (also referred to as Will’s Gut) is an environmental anomaly running east to west along the wild shoreline, passaging through a Cribstone Bridge, a nationally recognized, historic structure built in 1928 from a foundation of dry mounted granite slabs specifically designed to withstand heavy wind and waves, which connects the two islands. Will’s Strait is a channel-like body of coastal waters highly subject to surging tidal currents in heavy wind and weather. This natural distinction, as well as my personal thoughts and histories here, has influenced me to create this on-going project.