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OUT OF THE PAST
My family's 30 acre ranch stands in the midst of California's Central Valley. Though the nearby town of Manteca has grown over the years, this farmland has remained. Over the past 80 years my grandparents have lived on or near the property, just one mile down the road from where my 90 year old grandmother went to elementary school as a girl. At first, my photographs here were simply exercises in making beautiful images. But as mygrandfather became sick with cancer, the photographs took on a personal tone, evolving into a way of capturing a receding history.
INTO THE FUTURE
With the death of my grandfather in 1998, I came to a realization that this farm will not be around forever. Things got better when my uncle took over the farm, but two years later he passed away suddenly. With the growth and economics of commercial farming, and the fact that no family members are willing to take on an agricultural lifestyle, the future of this family farm is in serious question. Adding to this fear, the suburban sprawl has come within a mile of the ranch. Developers have purchased the farm next door and are now knocking on my grandmother's door. Because of all this, I am commited to capturing a sense of what this family farm, my family's farm, is like. It is my intention for this project to stand as a document of my family's history, and a way of life that is ending in California.
THEN...
the workshop:a portrait made from the objects left behind
Since the death of my grandfather in 1998, I have been making details of his workshop. Because I only have a few photographs of him on the farm, I've tried to create a different kind of portrait through the objects he used and in the place he spent so much time.
Decades of oil, cobwebs and dust lie everywhere. Through the blown-out cracks in the wood slats, natural light seeps, giving each image a nostalgic feeling, the same feeling I have for all these objects.
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