Link to Photographs:
As writers...some things seem to take shape on their own volition, as if there were some force hiding from us of a universal and potent quality that is too big to comprehend. It has to be dealt out in small servings and tirelessly searched for. It has to wear a veil so that we may only peek at it every now and again. Sometimes it seems like reality is just a reference point, or medium, through which this force communicates to us. There is a necessary filter in our minds, put in place to shadow these somethings, that we may slowly uncover little sparks of what humanity has been searching for, lest everything happen all at once and we are consumed. Yet...somehow Plato was able to escape the cave.
There
are little gaps in reality, tiny glitches in the matrix that don't
seem to make sense, places in the air that seem to have burped,
shifted it's contents along a fault line, and revealed a crevasse
descending down, down, deep into the rabbit hole. As humans, these
are the places where we must look. These things we see every day that
don't make a lot of sense will eventually emit shafts of light like
the macro-cosmic face of God trying to squeeze through the sheer eye
of a pinhole. And even these small portions are too confusing, but
it's our only way of making sense of it. Out of every banality, there
is something to be said. It is in these little gaps that we must look
to find some sort of truth, and meaning for our lives. Our job as
writers is to dive in to these holes, try to interpret towards the
bottom, and resurface to name the unnameable.
What
I see going on in these photos is one of those glimpses meant to be
extracted from behind the curtain of reality. It is a tension
creating a crevasse. The reason I've called this collection Urban
Agriculture is
because what I see going on in these photos resembles the tension
that occurs when urban environments intrude into that of the
pastoral, especially in the business of agriculture. Our romantic
vision of a typical farm setting usually consists of an ideal world
with bright red barns, quaint wooden fences, and clothing hanging out
on the line. It's where chickens are not cooped up, cattle roam
freely through the pasture, and farmer John still works with plow in
hand as he sows seeds that have never heard of pesticides or Monsanto
products. However, we know that this often not the case. There is a
gap here that is getting wider. Reality is crumbling at the nexus of
a few grain silos. What was once a symbol of abundance and prosperity
is now a symbol of poverty and better days, as graffiti begins to
declare war on the sides of walls. It reminds us now, instead, of a
standard of life we have set for ourselves that is reaching a point
of excess and unsustainability. It's all machinated. And from here,
we gain access to the bottom of the well.
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