A MUSIC SO SUBTLE AND VAST
"...we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us;
we enter the little circle of each other's arms,
and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance,
and the larger circle of all creatures, passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance, to a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments."
-Wendell Berry
These photographs were made during the decade I lived in the United Kingdom. I would travel home to photograph sites in Kentucky that had some significance in the history of folk music.
The photographs show the homes where prominent musicians were born, the churches and stages where they won acclaim, the sometimes-unsavory spots where they died, and places featured in their song lyrics.
These images are meditations on time and nostalgia. The sites documented are often abandoned, dilapidated, or just empty. Despite the cultural pedigree of these places, time has taken its toll.
The project is also deeply personal. As an expatriate, I often used Kentucky music as a lifeline—a way of accessing home from afar. The tension between the realities captured and the mythical Kentucky that can only exist in song lyrics instills these photographs with a sense of loss and impermanence.
The photographs—like the music that inspired them—are sometimes politically charged, pointing to the impact of indigence, violence, and environmental degradation on the rural American South.
