Mossy Truck 

Iam a recycled materials
artist.

You might wonder how my
work with digital media fits
into this category becuase
photographic materials are
not often recycled.  

Digital photography started
for me as ameans of doc-
umenting my other visual 
work.  I have discovered 
digital photography allows
one to escape much of the
corporeality and waste of
most processes - if an artist is careful and responsible.  Obviously my experience with recycled
materials informs my image choices.


Yellow Tank,
Chicago River

My vision promotes the beauty of aging
objects and fosters appreciation for the
effects of time and natural forces on
them.
 
It is my hope that a wider and deeper ap-
preciation for old used things will help
curb our culture’s tendency to throw so
many useful objects and materials away.
These things are often every bit as func-
tional as new ones if we are able to let
go of our culture's aesthetic of
“newness”.  If we allow these things to
continue to serve us, in their aged and
weathered beauty, they may function for
a long time to come, gathering and
showing the spirits and shadows of
many who have passed and who will
pass after us.

Willingness to accept “less” than brand
new, as long as it can be made func-
tional, will avert the fate of “newing” our-
selves to destruction of the Earth’s
natural life sustaining systems while pursuing more shiny new things.


Haunting Tunnel

My images do not show the common
aesthetic that many people find so
alluring: packaged store bought con-
sumer goods with a sexy smooth oily
sheen and hermetically sealed
"sanitized for your protection" plastic
wrapping.

These images are meant to recommend
and promote a different aesthetic – one
that celebrates the organic beauty of
decay: crumbling plaster, weathered
wood, moss, mildew, rust encrusted
objects, water-stains, and cracked
peeling paint. I have not invented this
esthetic. I merely wish to see it further
appreciated.

This aesthetic needs strong support if we
are to find our way through the dark tunnel,
forward to our future in the light, rather
than to a dark and abrupt ending to our
stay on planet earth.