It is easy to see the beginning of things, and harder to see the ends.

I started to work in a moment of uncertainty - questioning where I was from and the place I had come to. My journey to California had not been an easy one, and my time there was unsettling. This body of work explores notions of departures and returns, melancholy and nostalgia. Taking inspiration from the writings of Joan Didion, I sought to find the beginnings and ends of my own experience. These photographs and writings document my attempts to find myself while lost in an unfamiliar landscape, standing alone at the edge of my own frontier.

I entered a plague as if it were water.

Waves rode in like a pod of a hundred whales, white caps cresting as a herd of majestic beasts.

Lafayette, CA

I wondered, "Do I need botox in my wrist? The wrinkles there are more pronounced than the ones in my forehead." The folds seemed tired and relaxed as if to say, "We've come to expect your neglect. Sunscreen doesn't visit us here."

Joshua Tree, CA

I could no longer separate the sky from the clouds or the water, and so I waited for the tide to creep over the crest of the newly formed dune. I turned and a kelp pod crunched under my foot with the satisfying snap of its membrane.  I paused for a moment, and then kept moving. I reached the top of the hill. The sand brushed off so cleanly, just like a shower, and I could hear the sound of urine blasting sand from walls of rock and sandstone.

The ocean rushed back into the creek, sand moving earth. Shhhoooooossshhh, rounding the turn and washing a new ridge into being.

Garrapata, CA

I started to work in a moment: wild, raw, and bleak. Driving across the Mojave, I glanced out my window and saw the sand was the color of turmeric. Dry green brush was dusted in pink coating the Central Valley, and standing alone, a monadnock. Columns of dirt and sand, spirals of dust reaching to the sky. It was my return to the elemental. The land was a mirror, reflecting my image back to me. Always seeking, never solving.

Joshua Tree, CA

My watch slipped down as I extended my arm in the morning sun, coming to an abrupt stop as it hit the bone marking my wrist.

Upper Fisherman's, CA

Looking across the bay I saw Marin blanketed in mist. I stood watching, waiting for when fog became mountain. 

Land's End, CA