Growing up in the crux of the Rocky Mountains and vast prairies of Northern Colorado, I deeply resented the poverty of dry desert wastelands surrounding three sides of my hometown. When I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to pursue and degree in photography, I felt no different.
I was raised in an evangelical community and have always been attracted to stories as a way of understanding. One narrative repeated throughout the Bible involves people wandering through desert to find God: Moses and the Israelites from the Old Testament wander for forty years searching for the “Land of Milk and Honey”, and Jesus spends forty days and forty nights fasting alone confronting Satan’s taunting. This work is my story about wandering in the desert - a struggle with faith, my growing queer sexuality, and the discovery of creosote; a resilient desert bush that smells like water.
I was raised in an evangelical community and have always been attracted to stories as a way of understanding. One narrative repeated throughout the Bible involves people wandering through desert to find God: Moses and the Israelites from the Old Testament wander for forty years searching for the “Land of Milk and Honey”, and Jesus spends forty days and forty nights fasting alone confronting Satan’s taunting. This work is my story about wandering in the desert - a struggle with faith, my growing queer sexuality, and the discovery of creosote; a resilient desert bush that smells like water.
This work reads like the Stations of the Cross; a pilgrimage. The four 11x17” panels of text are printed using menstrual blood and desert sand on cotton rag paper. The wood pieces are cactus and driftwood sealed and fully functional as sexual objects. Images are 35mm film printed on 16x20” archival inkjet paper.