Texas

Palm Tree
Austin, TX
December 2004



Desert Palms
Brooklyn, NY
November 2006



I fly to Texas tomorrow for a week in the August heat and air conditioning. The last time I was in Texas was in December 2004 to celebrate Christmas at my brother's house. I left some of the coldest temperatures of my four Minnesota winters and found myself putting on a t-shirt and walking around my brother's neighborhood in the sun.

I had spent a week in New York earlier in October for the opening of my show, American Stills, at Jen Bekman and had met somebody the following night. My head was spinning with this new long distance predicament when I arrived in Texas. I told my parents I had fallen in love with a glass artist and I was giving serious consideration to finally making this move to New York which had been looming in my thoughts for some time.

I laid sleepless on the couch in the living room trying to imagine how I would survive and make a living and take pictures in this big crazy city. I got so worked up with excitement and anxiety, my mom sat in the room and talked to me in her calm, soothing voice - having so many years of experience and patience with my ups and downs and convictions and uncertainties.

In the morning, I got up early while my family was sleeping so I'd have some time alone to roam with my camera. I found a palm tree near my brother's house dazzling in the morning sunlight like a beacon of some hope and optimism.

By July, I had packed up my things in Minneapolis and had begun the journey to New York City, finally arriving at an apartment on Clinton Street that was home for five months until D. and Paris and I found a place in Brooklyn where an eccentric older man had passed away in his sleep and left his brother alone and bereft next door.