Through the Looking Glass | The Eclipse Show - 8|2017

Photos shot for Blue Sky Gallery on the show opening for artist, Kris Sanford's "Through the Looking Glass" and for the exhibition via multiple artists, "the Eclipse Show," curated by Christopher Rauschenberg.

One upon a time

Five years ago I crossed the United States with my belongings jam packed, contorted and tetris'd into my two-door Volkswagon rabbit accompanied by my best pal, Peter. The car was fit so tight there was no room for rearrangement to allow a tall, long legged driver, such as Peter, to trade off on driving. So I insisted on my passenger to be alert, ready with directions and music while we carried on westward. I have yet to post anything of our journey. Something about the trip brought a pang to my heart and up into the back of my throat, as if expressing the memories made them more past tense than I'd liked them to be. Or maybe less secretive, less magical than the way they dazzled in the back of my mind, under closed lids. Even now, thinking back to that 10 day trek, flashing through photos is this overwhelming feeling, images so vivid and loud, they bellow out in my chest; this entire timeline condensed. I don't think I can ever truly express just what that journey did for my soul, my life and my purpose- but in efforts to share, these are some of the digital photos from Arches and Zion, one of the most memorable places I've seen to date. And also the most stars in the dead of night!

It's messy with lights now,
Not in the way I recite the days of my arrival.
Spending time on that front deck gazing on
the lights that led me here.
Along that long abyss of Kansas
and that starry stretch that lit up the hills of Utah,
sitting in that valley, it was the most stars I had ever seen.
I'd never felt more free than I did then, with that person.
Still chasing. longing. looking.

time traveler

The ability to time travel, music in particular being most effective,
inescapable in paralyzing form.
Stopping you mid track, feeling time compress, overlap and trap.
A fun house of mirror memories.
Feeling the salty breeze and bath water skies,
where gravity was left by definition.
Laying in the sands, under the speckled, sparkling blackout, blanket overhead.
Forward, racing onward, headlights gone dark, full moon gleaming through pitch-black.
Flying, floating, awake daydream roaming, hunkered on the hillside's train tracks.
Eyes trained on the waters rippling, ripping through time, clocking the mileage,
dog earring this space I'm designating mine.

2.11.2017

storm winds

Unraveling,
faster than a spool of thread facing the edge
of a domestic hillside.
Consumed by thoughts of the impending change of fate.
Following this pattern,
A waterfall effect of negativity.
Narcissistic thoughts set to auto-pilot and
I've got no breaks.
Entering a dream world where I become third person narrating the disaster.
Walking, maybe running, through the fog
and I'm taking lovers with me.

Unexpectedly expected

September's arrived baring all it's distinct markings of ochre and brick tipped leaves. Glowing grey morning, peppered with sun, wiping the days slate clean with brisk evenings and cool nights. The inner chill beginning to settle in, no refuge from it's impending progression of winter, only to be lifted again come a new season of warmth. 

I can smell tonight. Battling chronic allergies stripping this ability, but tonight I can smell. Nostrils filling up with nostalgic poison. Flashbacks of memories almost crippling in their rapid pace. Close to paralyzed from sensory overload, jaw tightening while those small lumps form at the back of the throat where the tongue meets, forming like a terminal cancer. Enveloped in the moment, taken by smell, this is a form of time travel I'm much familiar with. 

A smell I will forever link to the pacific north west fall and winter. Sweet, piney, dewey, musky and invigorating. In this smell I am brought back to that small two-bedroom apartment where we started life anew. Wandering the nights to that corner pub, piggy-backs home, falling into that neighbors yard, kissing for the first time. We had been inseparable. New job, new classes, new video work, I was your muse and you my rock. You were different then, we were. This impending season, sending me though time, surprising me with the open door as the air fills with memory. Not a safe place for progression from the past.

For the better, for the worse

Dreams and reality almost interchangeable. Day obsessions into night, visions so vivid they become applied memories, important in conscious thinking as well as the un-.
Alcohol induced haze makes both states equally as tangible, pertinent.

Days spent sober to un-sober and back again. Conversation heavy, playful, leaving my head whirling. Balanced intensity of truth, assumption and unmeasured amounts of passion. A dangerous and dynamic duo.

Moments, multiplying, adding to a pattern of relationship. Almost impossible to recollect all at once as they continue on, unable to trace its entire lineage.

Photo adventures, city exploring to the outskirts of the state, to the coast, into the mountains. Even off the side of a backroad where the dirt bank was a perfect parking spot. Wandering in, getting too high on that joint, lost, eventually escaping by scaling the steep incline to the top of the road. How close we were to the actual point of entry. Laughing our heads off after the woods trauma, I decided I liked getting lost with you. 

Day drinking at Kelley Point, the Sandy, that street, that neighborhood, wherever; I felt freed, amazing. Laughing with you, always laughing, it's always been my favorite part. The grins shared are beginning to show their layered levels. Passionately secretive and secretly passionate. Feeling empowered, over powered, I can't get enough of the mix. Nostalgic memory and excitement of fleeting intimacy twist in my brain, distract my thoughts. Drug-like, consuming and yet somehow, refreshing.