About
For the past three summers, I have traveled to the remote Shetland Islands where the landscape is stark–treeless and windswept. In the summer, the sun barely dips below the horizon overnight. The mainland was home to my great-grandparents–crofters who worked a small farm and fished to pay rent to the then Scottish lairds. And while I have returned again and again, the place always makes me feel off balance, as though, knowing I’m at the 60th parallel, I sense I might actually fall back off the earth.
I found this same disorienting experience when I visited the geographically isolated, San Marcos, in Guatemala. I was entranced by the color and light–the crimson and plum dress, the peach-plastered walls, luminous and shadowy interiors. But the Mayan villagers, who are so often photographed, turned away from my camera lens and remain mysterious.
I was a journalist for weekly newspapers–15 years ago–and, since then, am a professor of English at Suffolk County Community College. That earlier interest in the story behind people and places, informs my teaching and my art. I see keen parallels between writing and photographic practices–the way the story sometimes chooses you; the way you have to step back from the scene, written or viewed, to take on perspective.
At Suffolk, I teach writing courses that work with the visual to prompt creative writing. I also teach a Humanities course that includes exploring creative impulses through photography.
