Forbidden Drive Project Statement
I have a childhood recollection of my father sharing with me, while sitting in a church pew near the back of the nave, that his sanctuary was found outdoors; it was while in nature that he experienced God. My relationship with the outdoors is an amalgamation of this feeling and Rebecca Solnit’s sentiment that places can love us back and give us much. “[Places] give us continuity, something to return to, and offer a familiarity that allows some portion of our own lives to remain connected and coherent. They give us an expansive scale in which our troubles are set into context, in which the largeness of the world is a balm to loss, trouble, and ugliness.” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words of 1844 still ring true to me today: “The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture.
I was raised in a land of cowboys, vast prairie expanses, and rugged mountain wilderness. Montana’s wildness and openness was instilled within me and became part of my essence. Yet, I did not realize how important nature was to me until I eagerly left home at eighteen. My awareness of the importance of this connection to nature increased with each return visit home and the feeling of belonging and lightness I was met with. Overtime I have learned through struggles with depression and anxiety that I need to go outdoors to calm my mind and work through my thoughts. Twenty years later, as life has taken me here and there, I have learned to pack my love for nature, adventures and exploring, along with my cameras, as my most essential items. Wherever I go, I am always seeking that rare and precious sense of place and the elusive feeling of belonging.
Love led me to Philadelphia, PA in 2019 and in the years living here I have found a sense of belonging in the Wissahickon Valley Park. The Wissahickon has become my place. To spread my legs, “get out of the city”, clear my mind, get lost in my mind, or work through my thoughts… Sometimes, multiple times a week, other times far less frequently, this is the place I go. Here, with my camera in tow, I center myself through listening and witnessing, seeing and feeling this place. I notice the subtle changes of light, the drastic changes of seasons, and the slower changes of time. Taken over the course of five years, these photographs are taken along the Forbidden Drive path of the Wissahickon. They are as much a mirror of my internal psyche as they are a documentation of this place.