It started in a grocery store.

For months I had been dreaming of this image. In my mind I saw a woman in it with long silvery hair. I looked into buying wigs but was holding out to find just the right person. I looked on local modeling and agency websites but just couldn’t find the perfect fit. Until…

I was grocery shopping in my small town store, perusing the veggies as I am fond of doing, when I looked up and saw a woman with the most perfect long, gray hair. I looked at my husband and without saying any of what I was thinking, he said, “YES”. I am such a shy person that I battled with myself for a moment before going over. I rehearsed what I would say and my face kept turning red, but eventually, with some gentle nudging, I walked over to my mystery silver-haired lady.

I introduced myself awkwardly as she looked a little bit confused. She was hesitant to take part in the series for good reason. Here I was – looking particularly hippie-ish that day – approaching a stranger in a grocery store to model for a fine art series I was creating. I didn’t even have any examples to show yet of what it would be. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if it would work out. But I took the leap, and gave her my information, and left without a yes or no. She said she would look at my website and get back to me.

A little while later a glowing email appeared in my inbox. She had written me. My mystery grocery store woman! And she said yes. She said she felt a connection to what I was doing and was happy to model for me. I told her we’d make it a special shoot on my birthday and I prepared to make sure everything was absolutely ready for her arrival.

Preparing for this image turned out to be a hilarious task. Step one was to find a bed, which I found fairly quickly online for a good price. The problem? It was too tall. So, myself, my husband, and my friend got to work sawing the legs off the bed so that it would sit lower to the ground.

Next, I had to find a mattress. I am two things: stubborn and frugal. So, not wanting to spend money and desiring an already yucky mattress, I opted for a mattress that had been thrown out behind a mattress store. It was filthy, disgusting, stinky, moldy…everything awful. And yes, I am entirely aware of how incredibly stupid it is to pick a mattress off the street. Nonetheless, I did it. And aside from spreading mold to the floors and walls and potentially contracting some unknown rash, I was fine. Feel free to strike that last sentence from your memory. I know my friend has, who was so opposed to this idea I thought she would throw herself from my moving car. She came around, though. Here is said friend actually laying on the mattress for a test shot. Oh, the things we do for friendship!

Once the bed and mattress were obtained it was time to get sand. I insisted that we drive to some sand dunes about 5 hours from my house. I wanted authentic sand. I wanted the real deal. I wanted to be able to say: I GATHERED THAT SAND WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS IN THE HOT DESERT SUN! So that is what I did, sort of.

When I got to the sand dunes temperatures were reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I get very sick in hot temperatures so I was already fading the moment we arrived. I couldn’t pull my car close to the dunes so we had to resort to walking up the dunes with trash bags and dragging them back to the car. This proved to be a physically taxing process, as the bags were very heavy and the sun was very hot. We were burning fast.

After about eight trash bags full of sand I decided I had reached my limit, and I left feeling slightly defeated. The day, however, was memorable and amazingly fun. I will never forget the onlookers thinking we were bonkers for trying to drag sand back to my car.

The rest of the sand I got from my favorite store (NOT) – Home Depot. All together it totaled 800lbs of sand. I reserved my beautiful sand dune sand for the top layer so that it would look yellow and smooth compared to the manufactured stuff. It was important to me that the sand be authentic because that sand came from hundreds upon thousands of years of breakdown and decay. I loved the idea that it would be even more held in history through a photograph.

It also served to further the idea of the image – time passing yet feeling trapped in it as well. It moves so quickly, and yet we are held in place by the fear of missing something. The spine – a whole other story in itself – was placed to show the decay that happens to us all, and to everything. The rotting bed was being taken over by death. The long, silvery hair that I so longed for helped to tell the story of a person who has been so stagnant that even her hair is growing into the scene.

I got asked many times at the Fourth Wall show opening if I manipulated the model’s hair to have a blue cast. I did not. Because of the color balance of the sand, anything neutral, including the walls and mattress, naturally had a blue hue to them even though they were all gray. I loved the effect and kept it in the final image.

When the day to shoot came, it was a beautiful one. The sun was shining, it was warm out, and my beautiful grocery store model even brought me hand crafted jewelry for my birthday. Since the setup was finished when she arrived we got to work shooting, which was faster than the first image in the series, and before I knew it I had my birthday wish – an image that I loved. I found it so fitting that I should shoot this image about time passing on my 29th birthday.

I hope you enjoy this new series which is on display and represented by the JoAnne Artman Gallery until February 18th. It is showing in New York City (Chelsea).

Very limited editions. Each print is offered at 42×42 inches with an edition of 2, and 8×8 inches with an edition of 3.

You may contact the gallery for purchase requests. Each print has been proofed, signed, and numbered by me, and comes with a certificate of authenticity.

—

Photographed with a Sony a7ii and a 25mm Zeiss lens.

Model: SLC

Assistance: Kelly McGrady

Most people go through this change in time. For most people childhood moves rather slowly because we are unaware of life’s duties and the inevitable passing of time. We are largely unaware of death and the things we want to accomplish before then. So we are blissfully ignorant of time at all, and thus, it moves slowly.

Depending on who you are, you might think about time frequently. Maybe you’re at work and have a deadline and comment on how you wish you had longer. Maybe you are savoring a good moment and wish it could last forever. Or maybe you are growing older and thinking of when you had more time. No matter what the circumstance, we all think about time at some point in our lives, and usually it is a constant companion.

But the reason I write about this is because of my shift in how I perceive time. I used to worry about it. I used to think it moved so quickly. But now things have changed. Just the other day my husband asked me if I felt time moved too quickly, and without hesitation I said “no”. Because, without realizing it, I changed my perspective on time. I stopped wondering where it had gone and instead started to embrace where it was now, for however long it chooses to stay.

I started thinking about what changed in my life over the last few years. People always say that as you get older time moves faster – an old saying to be sure, but one that is very often true. The older we get, the faster time seems to move. If this is true, then I must be nearing the edge of a black hole, because time is doing just the opposite.

What changed for me is my attitude toward life. I used to see it as a race. I used to want to be better (than who, I can’t exactly say), and achieve more, and be rewarded for these things. I saw others doing more and wanted to hustle to be like them. I saw greatness swirling around me and wanted a piece for myself. I tried really hard to get to the top. I valued that which now I see as a plague.

What changed is how I react to situations, as well as how I create them and how I leave them. Instead of working to be better, I work to be complete. Instead of creating situations that are full of stress I create situations that are full of peace. And when one chapter closes, I do not think of all I could have done but instead all that I did do, and I feel fulfilled.

1. Set goals for yourself, but do not set strict time limits.

I am all for setting goals, and I am even all for giving yourself a timely goal to complete your task. What I am not all about is what I call the Pass/Fail grading system. If you set a goal for yourself, and a date to complete that goal, it is not healthy to judge yourself solely based on how well you met that arbitrary date. Should your plan not come together fully by that time, do not give yourself a failing grade. Do not look down at yourself. Keep going, and realize that your dream is worth it.

2. When something goes wrong, teach yourself how to see the good in it.

Failures are for crazy people…meaning you have to be crazy to buy into them. Forget about failures. Stop seeing life as failure and success. Instead see it as an in-between, no matter how wonderfully or how terribly something goes. If it goes wrong, seek out those things you did well in the effort. If it goes well, seek to better yourself by identifying weaknesses. Life is almost never about a failure or a success. It is about your journey to get there and how much you have grown once you’re on the other side.

3. Keep a list.

When looking back at our life, it is easy to identify different chapters. Childhood. College. Marriage. Parenthood. Career. Self-discovery. Etc.

This is how people think. We split our lives up into these smaller pockets so that we can keep track of what has happened to us. Let’s play into that a little bit. As you enter each new experience, write down words to describe how you felt about it. I am not good at journaling my experiences. I get bored with it. But if you can remember to, every so often, write down simple words that indicate what you’ve learned from a specific situation then you are more likely to savor those lessons and keep them closer.

Here are some good examples from my life. I used to be far too interested in the worry that surrounds the internet: is so-and-so copying my work? Did I get a negative comment? Will people like me? From these naturally occurring questions I began to develop answers for myself, though not in direct relation to the questions. I learned humility, in understanding that the world does not revolve around any one person. I learned optimism, in realizing it is far more fulfilling to trust and love than to distrust and hate. I learned confidence, in understanding that I must love myself before anyone else will take that chance.

Learn from your circumstance, and remember those lessons. Keep them close, and let them govern your life. The more lessons you gather, the more life seems to slow down and taste a little bit sweeter.

4. Ditch the media.

My phone is a phone most of the time. It doesn’t update me on emails, and I frequently have it turned to airplane mode. I don’t bring my camera and laptop most places I go if I can help it. I turn my computer off when I’m not using it so it isn’t as easy to access on a whim. I’ve implemented a new system of coming up with creative ideas: instead of logging them in my phone, I write them on notepads strategically placed around my house, in my car, and in my purse.

The obsession that is wanting everything immediately largely stems from media. If we can take it down a notch and do things the old-fashioned way from time to time, we begin to savor the moments we spend doing those things a little bit more. Instead of driving, walk. Instead of emailing, write a letter. Instead of starting your day with the computer, watch the sunrise. Let nature take over. Appreciate the immediacy of life.

5. Start a gratitude club.

Start a tradition for yourself where you share what you are grateful for. Maybe it is at the dinner table, or you start a dinner club once a week for your friends to talk about gratitude. Maybe you start a blog, or use it as a space to talk about gratitude. Maybe you write it down for yourself.

At the end of every week (I choose Fridays) I talk with my husband about what I was grateful for during the previous week. This allows me to focus on the good, learn from the bad, and understand more clearly what is good about my life. If I am having trouble coming up with enough points, I search for my failures. There is more goodness in failures than in successes.

6. Find meaning in everything.

Search. SEARCH. It is what keeps us questioning and wondering and alive. Search for meaning in all things big and small. Do not wait for momentous occasions for your life to seem full and important. Create them for yourself. Run through the forest and pretend you are the wind. Notice someone’s smile on a bus and smile back, and feel the humanity in that. Cry when you want to cry and laugh when you want to laugh and enjoy the power in that. From the most mundane, everyday objects to the most important, life-changing travels, everything contains equal potential to astound us.

7. Find your innocence and curiosity.

Childhood goes by so slowly because we are discovering. When I was very young I had a dream that I flew, but I believe it really happened. So instead of telling me that it was all a dream, my mom told me that everyone flies once in their life, and that was my turn. What grew in me was a sense of huge imagination. I believed her. I believed in my ability to do whatever I wanted. I believed I was special. When we are children we believe these things so easily. We see our potential without recognizing it as such, and we believe we are worth trying for.

Get that feeling back. Believe in things you would usually discount. Learn to deny nothing and find the possibility in all things. Create your own possibilities, and believe you are worth it.

Don’t let this new year come and go. Spend time in the middle of it. Enjoy each moment of it.

Be present.

Be curious.

See everything.

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Photograph taken during my stay in Hana (Maui) Hawaii in October with model Marsha Denlinger.

I knew before leaving for this trip that I wanted to shoot a red dress in the dunes. So with that in mind, I packed only one outfit to wear and set out with that restraint (or rather, world of possibilities!) to play with. I had this idea for a few weeks and wasn’t entirely sure how to execute it, given that sand can be a bit tricky to work with, but I was open to this visually looking, perhaps, different than I anticipated…so long as the concept was still there.

I was with my husband so he helped me shoot myself laying on the sand dune against the horizon. I guided him into where he should be standing (or squatting, for a low angle), and I set the exposure, etc. I knew I had clouds to add in later so that wasn’t a problem, but photographing the rest of the sand was.

I was going to create more of a static wall by shooting the side of a dune and then try to photograph sand being thrown up into the air. I would then composite that together to create the illusion of sand falling down a wall. This seemed futile even as I was photographing it as I wondered how it would go together. But then my husband stepped into the sand and we both noticed how the sand created a natural wall with streams of sand running down it. I photographed that, and that is exactly what you see here.

The red of the dress I knew would be contrasted with the sand, but I also chose it for the unique symbolism the color red brings. It feels urgent and deathly to me if used in the right context, and here that seemed very appropriate. Falling sand has long been a symbol of time passing (need I quote from Days of our Lives?), and so I wanted to use that symbol in this image. The sand continues to fall down the wall into darkness, and our subject sits very close to the edge.

A question that comes up is wondering if she too will be consumed by the growing crag and if so, what her fate will be. I love creating images that ask more questions than they answer, and in this image, even I do not have all the answers. I know the questions being posed, and I have my own ideas based on how I’m feeling on different days.

That is the beauty of creating: to continually surprise yourself & always keep yourself reaching for answers to new questions.