Statement
As an observer I have always been drawn to my native environment, content to spend hours looking at light casting shadows on the ground, patterns created in the trees, and glimpses of old houses tucked away just out of view—daydreaming. This observational awareness has been a constant throughout my life and has had a direct imprint on my creative practice.
Thread Bound
“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” -Lewis Hine
Thread Bound is a portfolio of images inspired by the historic textile industry of Greenville SC, once considered the textile capital of the world. This series develops a new perspective of these iconic timeworn structures that speaks to all aspects of mill life, from workers to village community’s and forgotten artifacts. Utilizing plain cotton fabric reminiscent of what was produced in the mills during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s I fold and dismantle the fabric creating sections that act as a map with each part representing the passage of time through fading and fragmented imagery. I weave a story of both what is concrete and what appears ephemeral. By altering the surface layers in my photographs, I connect the past to the present, forging together both reality and fabrication. The result is a unique story of place, revealing not only what is literally left in place but what is unseen and carried in the viewer’s imagination.
Process
Cotton fabric is scanned on a flatbed scanner at a high resolution. Each one is folded or deconstructed for each scan. Photographs are then layered on top if the scanned image and certain areas are revealed
or hidden. They are printed on acid free archival rag paper.
I have used my photographs of the mills, sometimes in combination with portraits of South Carolina mill workers courtesy of Lewis Hine’s free domain collection from the Library of Congress.