I am fascinated by naval history and its relationship to historical photographic processes, specifically, with the use of naval superstitions and traditions, pre-standardized cartography, and the methods of photographic image-making prior to the invention of film. My own photographic practice is a mixture of contemporary and historical processes. I am often drawn to the use of camera-less photographic techniques as a metaphor for the memories I have from my naval service that I can never divulge, at least without severe consequences. I thus have used my photographic practice to express a simultaneously new and old world of my own construction, using pieces of my memory and imagination as the structural components to these new landscapes, feelings, and machines.

This project, PORTAL, is my first avenue into applying my photographic experiments with the experiences of veterans other than myself. I have spent the last few months exploring the Veterans Community Living Center at Homelake, near Monte Vista, CO and learning about some of the veterans that now call Homelake home. It is one of the oldest Veterans Living Centers in the United States and the only one to provide onsite housing as well as healthcare services, operating almost entirely independently of the VA. US Veterans from all over the world apply to live at Homelake, where many of them choose to live out the rest of their days surrounded by fellow veterans and a supportive community in the San Luis Valley near the Colorado-New Mexico border.

I enjoy delving into the parts of history that were much more reliant on mythological creatures, superstitions, and the paranormal. In many ways, Homelake represents an amalgamation of traditions, constructed folklore, and Truths. Much of this project explores the concept of the paranormal that challenges the tropes of fear and negativity commonly associated with “ghosts.” Veterans have a uniquely intimate awareness of the reality of death that awaits us all, especially those veterans that have chosen a last place to live. Many of their individual stories are difficult to understand from the perspective of someone who hasn’t lived it, even if I can understand it on a very similar level, using the same language, it is still not the same. In PORTAL, I deliberately embrace these inherent misunderstandings, choosing to highlight the things that incite wonder and curiosity of the unknowable, rather than any fears of it. This project is an experiment in making maps for unreachable places.