In the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic I felt lost, the days slipped by. I wanted to step away from screens and go outside and use my hands to make something instead of scrolling through the news. This brought me to several analog processes. These images were all made with a Polaroid Spectra Pro camera and expired film. I have been drawn to the forest in my work recently and its power of personal transformation in folklore and fairy tales. It is often a place to face challenges, a place to find yourself or be lost forever. I took the Spectra with me on my walks around the forest in my neighborhood and around the Seattle area trying to capture some of that power.
“The woods enclose. You step between the first trees and then you are no longer in the open air; the wood swallows you up. There is no way through the wood any more, this wood has reverted to its original privacy. Once you are inside it, you must stay there until it lets you out again for there is no clue to guide you through in perfect safety; grass grew over the track years ago…”
-Angela Carter, The Erl-King