WILL MAY
“As I remained in one place I slowly observed my surroundings in a new way. Home morphed into timeless rooms: days and nights changed in intensity, color, and angle, until the light was punctuated by work, meals, exercise, anxiety, and sleep in an endless loop.
Relentless stress and newfound intimacy made our small house shrink: too many minutes and not enough room. Social feeds offered infinite news without recourse or leadership. Disease became abstracted, the camera and phone ubiquitous, everything flattened on a screen or expanded into gruesome detail. My attention wandered.
Soon going outside was a shock, a symbol of transition. Neighbors waved from a distance as seeds were planted and weeds were wrangled. Everyone looked like a bandit and then murder on our screens sparked an ongoing revolution. Wheels within wheels, the 1980’s in the 1960’s stuffed into 1865, all delivered to now, to someone else’s body, to us.
For me a photograph is light and space made flat, orphaned in time. Each is a mystery, a memory, or a post-it note, depending on my mood. Staying in one place showed me there are more mysteries than are dreamt of as we forget the time together, alone.”
JUNE 2020