Exhibition dates: 12th November – 6th December 2009

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These are terrific – I want one!
A big thankx to Alex for allowing me to reproduce the images.

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Alex Lukas
‘Untitled’
2009
Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages

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Alex Lukas
‘Untitled’
2009
Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages

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“Glowlab is pleased to present ‘The Eventuality of Daybreak’, a solo exhibition by Alex Lukas featuring a new series of post-apocalyptic urban landscapes that blur the visual boundaries of fiction and reality.

Lukas’ work explores the existence of disaster, be it realized or fictitious, in contemporary society. Hyper-realistic motion pictures and unforgiving news footage depict seemingly identical – and equally riveting – facades of tragedy. The artist recognizes that relentless visual bombardment has resulted in society’s desensitization to the aesthetics of destruction.

For ‘The Eventuality of Daybreak’, Lukas has selected photographic spreads of well-known metropolises from vintage publications and uses them dually as canvas and unlikely subject. Through a deft handling of paint and carefully placed screenprinted passages, the artist pushes these aging illustrations in futuristic contexts. Submerging these cities conceptually and physically, Lukas inundates images of American cities with layers of media representing cataclysmic floods and crippling overgrowth.

Also included in the exhibition are works on paper depicting near-future scenes of devastated landscapes – crumbling infrastructure, overturned trucks and telling signs of human despair. As a counterpoint to the underwater cities, these darkly atmospheric and barren vistas signal devastation through an unsettling sense of absence.

Lukas’ intentional use of dated imagery presented in tandem with contemporary situations forces the viewer to reconcile two differing ideologies of urban space. The artist’s work calls into question society’s collective acceptance of the urban environment as an arena of destruction, once thought unthinkable and now seemingly inevitable.

‘The Eventuality of Daybreak’ is Lukas’ first solo exhibition with Glowlab. Lukas’ work has also been exhibited in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Stockholm and Copenhagen as well as in the pages of Swindle Quarterly, Proximity Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, The Drama and The New York Times Book Review. Lukas is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and currently lives and works in Philadelphia, where he is a member of the artist collective Space 1026.”

Press release on the Glowlab website

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Alex Lukas
‘Untitled’
2009
Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages

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Alex Lukas
‘Untitled’
2009
Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages

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Alex Lukas
‘Untitled’
2009
Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages

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Alex Lukas
‘Untitled’
2009
Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages

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Glowlab
30 Grand Street between Thompson St. and 6th Ave, New York

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 12-6pm

Glowlab website

Alex Lukas website

Apparently I have enough time to update my post tag list, nothing new in the land of N yet, trying to figure out how I’m going to interlink all of my story’s into movuies and stuff.

Hello, hello, hello!  Or in the words of Ann Curry, “Good morning, good morning, everybody, in the news this morning, good morning.”  Oh what the heck, I’ll just let her say it.

Gets me every time.

So as some of you guessed, my prolonged absence was actually due to a misguided and ill-conceived attempt to grow a mullet like Tom Brady.  Now David Beckham is getting in on the weird mullet act.  Should such a beautiful man get a roadkill haircut?  And again, like Tom Brady and his lady, isn’t David Beckham like, married to Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice, aka Skinny McPencil?

It may seem like I’m digressing.  I’m not.  Posh, who likes to be called Victoria, (it’s a compliment, she says… How is your name a compliment, unless your name is Damnyouresexy Jones?) recently said in an interview that she won’t lie–she eats lots of salads.  ”Salad.  I’m not going to lie.  I’m not one of those people that says “Oh, I eat hamburgers.”

And the sick thing is, I’m so glad she said that.  I never thought that she ate anything other than salad, except for maybe the occasional kilo of cocaine (jk, no one can pry the cocaine shipments from Kate Moss’s kung-fu grip), but I’m just glad that she finally publicly said something honest.  This helps take away the stigma from women in this country who DO eat hamburgers (guilty!) that we’re somehow inherently flawed because we can’t seem to look like Victoria Beckham.  I do like Victoria Beckham, because she let her son wear his astronaut suit out in public, because she seems to love her children and her husband, and because she’s not shoveling loads of bull at the average American.  For that, Victoria, (can I call you Vicky?) I am grateful.

Now enough about boring, skinny famous people.  Let’s talk about me!  I have been noticeably absent for the past five or so days.  Honestly I was working like a crazy person trying to get something ready for tomorrow.  Of course, I’ve wanted to blog so badly the whole time that I’m staying up way too late tonight as a trade off, but no matter.  Back in college I’d never go to sleep before 3am.  I was so nocturnal I thought I’d begun to grow a marsupial pouch.  (In reality I was just getting another fat roll on my stomach.  I blame Taco Bell for being open til 2am or later.)

During my absence, I did not let you down, dear readers.  I stayed within my calories and tracked them compulsively.

One thing that I really must work on is eating regularly.  I eat breakfast every day, because as reader Christine mentioned on her blog the other day, eating breakfast kickstarts the metabolism.  Now I’ll be honest.  There’s lots of dietary information out there that I think is total crap, but I’m a big believer in the metabolism.

Thyroid issues aside, I don’t think that some people are born with a fast one or a slow one.  I think we train ourselves into one end of the spectrum.  For instance, in high school I “ran track.”  (Translation: I did shot-put and discus on the condition that I never, ever had to run in practice–a condition to which the coach agreed because I held the county records and he needed the meet points.  Despite the common assumptions, shot-putters are not all Helga and Thor.  It’s all about technique, really.)  My friends were some of the distance runners.  Not surprisingly, they were very, very thin.  In the off season they ran cross-country.  In their spare time, they ran around their neighborhoods.  Meanwhile I was sunning myself in the backyard and biting individual grapes from a bunch I dangled from my hand.

It is my opinion that, (and I am by no means a doctor–I don’t even play one on the internet–so feel free to ignore this non-medical advice), a slow metabolism lives in a body that moves less, and a fast metabolism lives in a body that moves more.

The metabolism is what allows a bear to hibernate for months and wake up thinner but healthy.  His metabolism slows to a crawl and he stores all his fat.  His body works very efficiently on little energy.

That’s the same thing we do when we skip breakfast!  We send the bear into hibernation and our bodies start conserving fuel (FAT) because there’s no new supply.

Think about the first people on this planet.  I’m of the they-were-put-here persuasion, but you might be of the they-evolved-from-sea-monkies persuasion.  Either way, they didn’t have it easy.  They basically walked around (which is why walking is so important to a healthy lifestyle) looking for food, ate when they found it, went hungry when the didn’t.  That’s why our bodies can work much like a bear’s.  We were built for such occasional periods of hunger.  It’s not a flaw that we gain weight, it’s part of the intricate design of the human body.  This was all worked out long before Glen Bell ever dreamed of opening the first Taco Bell.  And even longer before someone realized that a drive thru meant never even having to stand up to get your food.

So the moral of the story is eat your breakfast.  Otherwise you’re just making weight loss harder.

In other news, I have a puncture wound on my right pinkie where the dog bit me when I was trying to take away a pecan tree branch that she wanted to bring inside and chew into sawdust.  I was very concerned about this at first, but then I realized that I’d be really ticked off if someone tried to take away my 7 Layer Burrito, and then I kinda see where she’s coming from.  However, that’s no excuse.  So I’m going to work on enforcing the rules with her more.  It’s been hard because I’ve been so busy, but she’ll be happier if she’s not biting me and getting a subsequent spanking.  The Ranch is a mess too, and the Mothership is coming to visit tomorrow, so I’ve got to get cleaning as soon as asap.  (My best friend used to say that.)

I promise I’ll try to keep updating regularly.  I’m also thinking progress photos once a week.  I know I said that earlier, so now I’m going to make good on it.

Today I ate:

-Breakfast-

Grits –130

1 T. butter –100

-Supper- (chicken soup)

chicken breast –220

1 small russet potato –59

rotini –239

rice–180

water

garlic

Calories remaining: 790 (TOO MANY!)

Should I buy some Nutella for situations like this, when I have almost 800 calories left?  I think I just might…

Oh and by the way, I had my “I feel skinnier” moment this morning!  I’ll tell more tomorrow afternoon or night.

Goodnight!

Si tu oses surprendre
la vérité de ce vieux mur
et ses lézardes, déchirures,
formant des visages, des sphinx,
des mains, des clepsydres,
sûrement une présence
arrivera pour ta soif,
probablement partira
cette absence qui te boit.

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Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972) – Les Travaux et les Nuits (Los trabajos y las noches, 1965)

It felt like an absence
  because I found myself
naked and in darkness
the wood on which I sat
the timid air
the swollen imagination
could I repeat
my lucky survival once again ?
together, wed-locked
to the void that excites
me, to the nothingness
that caresses me, to the silence
that disintegrates me
I would remain
    somewhere, somehow
giving names to unknown
aspects of reality
    imagining myself naked
or aroused
  or isolated
or none of these
just then,
nowhere to be
found.

Nihilistic Poetry

Hello all, or one, or whoever might happen to read this.

First of all, my apologies for my lack of updates recently.  I suppose it is not very “professional” to leave one’s blog un-updated for so long.  And I enjoy writing.  It gives me a release valve for all the built-up pressure of words and thoughts and ideas that accumulate in my brain over the course of the day (or in this case, weeks).  But as with so many things I enjoy, it still requires practice.  And practice requires a certain amount of discipline.

I would consider myself a person of grand ideas but with sometimes unrealistic expectations or patience for such ideas.  Ultimately, I have a persevering personality, so good and even great things do get done.  But they do not always happen when I want them to, nor do they always attain the level of achievement I desire.  For the past few weeks, I have had auditions, callbacks, classwork, and other personal goings-on that have distracted me from this blog.  But fortunately they have also distracted me from myself.  Instead of constantly raking my mind for new grand schemes that are inevitably overambitious, I have become preoccupied with the demands of the current moment because the current moment has required it.  In others words, I’ve finally had a dose of practicality.  Thank God.

That really is what the last couple of weeks have taught me – simple practicality.  As one of my acting professors told me on Friday during a class improv, “Just work on the simple stuff.  You can break the rules once you’ve learned the simple stuff.”  So if I’m worried that I’m not extending myself enough, (knowing me) I’m probably overextending.  Less is more.  Quality, not quantity.  Find something to do, and do it well.  Practicality.  This is a good thing for me to learn.

This isn’t the right time to be feeling so nihilistic all of a sudden, the past week as a been a hell of self-indulgence and binges on anything that has been going, six days in a row I have drank stupid amounts of drink and consumed little food compared to the things I am not brave enough to mention that has been facilitated by a outside member of our wasteful troupe of actors and writers and directors and artists within the institution that we call home – for now. We all know this is going to end in mourning, for advertisements on television warn of one in five contracting these such illnesses that cannot be cured and our affirmation into the lifestyle we have chosen does nothing but welcomes the maddening sick. A bottle of water by my side as I retell the story of the past week with guilt and a soft sad tone, no one is around now but me, the walls are a white wash stained yellow from the now dispersed smoke and outside the window the rain falls and its dark. The time is 13:46 as I write this and sun never rose to set but permanently stayed in bed for it feels how I do today.

Paranoia sweeps down except for the hours of seven in the morning until ten when I arrive for a lecture or if it has been cancelled that is when it begins. The use of the internet has made everything too easy, so instead of hard work routing through dictionaries and encyclopaedias and books on referencing the art you are making. The art I’m making is sparse, sporadic and just as self-indulgent as the debauchery. I am a selfish person. I have selfish wills and will do in fact close to anything to get what I desire at this point in time before the time counts down and the new year is upon us with great dissatisfaction to the previous year that has ended, now only existing in memory and digital images upon your Facebook page. The death student comes as a quick genocide every June. When thousands strip themselves of youth and enter a world unknowing and cruel, where time costs more than space, space is harder to find than that beautiful girl you once saw on a bus who flashed you a smile as you walked past her and had to double take because that smell of white chocolate and the glow of ethereal purity could only have been a momentary lapse, a déjà vu because she then goes onto resemble first love in its entirety – a sweet drop of sweat from the forehead during a summers morning embrace. These realizations left me without a hope for the future but more of a direct drive to find the hope to spur on the grand gesture of life outside of education – the journey into the wild cities where nights of talk with Mike about the evolution of beauty: the evolution of the peppered moth during the industrial revolution to adapt to the new changes in global discolouration to escape the advances of the great tit sums up how the in the ever changing public persona of myself must make a defining less gradual change of myself to escape the advances of becoming the deadly artist or actor or performer. The holiness of the moth being able to do this give faith in myself as a higher being (figuratively) to change to fit my surroundings in a social and political state, but isn’t this just the life of an actor anyway? I pretend to be someone else to escape my own inferiority within different circumstances of a show, taking upon a different set of idiosyncrasies to fit criteria handed down by the power above whoever that is.

This brings me onto my second point: The process I go through in order to perform is much like that of other artists I have read about but for obvious reasons not able to obtain first hand: I as a member of the human race have an hereditary emotional resonance with everything and nothing. Through my construction as twenty one year old male living in this time I can connect with things in my time and times past and imagine what a future self would do and using these as grounding to levitate myself into the shoes of a character, contorting to fit: bodily language, internal thoughts, given points in task as if I know to enter at this point and exit at this point. It is through the public task of audience to decipher my true function within the piece, where as within myself I only do as I am told and bringing the basic emotional gestures to show – like a dog doing tricks. This however does not deter from the work I create, for I create work out of a love of going through the ‘motions’ whether they be through a barrage of a task based study of theatre itself or an internalization of characters or caricatures who enter and exit with reasons and not presence.

So I conclude that life itself is a busy bustling one that must not be handled with care and too much thought because the thought itself is a saddening thing, it’s the face value tactic I approach with carefully with a hope that the next hand I shake would be full of love and the next set of daggers thrown are my own for practice. This all stems within weeks of thought upon how relationships change within the shadows for better or worse with the slightest of grievances aimed towards my relationship with performance itself. Yet writing never lets me down, I can say what ever I would desire and not feel the need to show off using concise grammar and spelling, without real respect for prose and more just the stream-of-conscious thoughts and feelings armed with spell check, coffee and an unmentionable. The words pour from my head like a tin of paint splattering onto a canvas just to drip off again due to a nonchalance way of looking at the art your creating the creating it itself is the art and the action the performance so with everything a performance or a piece of art is it then devalued? Same with relationships with people: if every one is free willed to do what they want, talk to who they would like does that then devalue an already outstanding relationship with another person if the relationship intertwines like every song you have ever listened to sound tracking your life on shuffle? My experiences are now shaved nerve endings filling my eyes with that sharp bite of pain you get reminiscent to tooth ache. Bah.

The older I get, the more I realize that happiness is the absence of feeling, rather than any sort of fleeting euphoria.

“Empty And Marvelous”

Patagonia

Sophia

where has wisdom gone
she dyed her hair red
sauntered off in stiletto heels
proclaiming independence
from responsibility of self and tribe
no longer does she call aloud in the streets
raise a voice to be heard in public squares
a goddess once bathed in sage
searching out both dark and light
now doused with persimmon perfume
talking in riddles declaring autonomy
never once considering inheritance
leaving confusion to rule, bearing war
as only confusion can

poem & painting by

Jaymie Thorne

All Rights Reserved

© 2009

Oops.  It’s been quite a few days, and this blog has fallen by the wayside.  Of course, it hasn’t been forgotten.  Greg likes to remind me every day that we need to write.  He also likes to remind me that we need to clean the bathroom and buy a house, among other things.  In the spirit of productivity, we’ll cross one thing off that list at a time.  Right now, let’s get this blog up to speed.

The thing about blogging is, more often than not, you’re just talking about your life.  And sometimes, life is boring.  Or aggravating.  Or a little bit depressing.  No one wants to read about those things.  At least, I don’t think you do.  If you’re interested in hearing about this week’s violations at the “lady-bits doctor” or how I locked my keys in my car, then by all means, call me.  We’ll talk.  Otherwise, I’ll favor a little absence over transparency any day.  I think most would agree.

The other thing about blogging about your life is, sometimes, life just gets in the way.  Take Greg, for example.  He’s been working several industry trade shows a week for the past few weeks.  This usually means he’s out of the house by 6:30, on his feet all day, and walking back in the house around 8, exhausted and smelling like a tortilla chip.  After a shower and a snack, it’s off to bed.  If he makes it to 9, it’s a late night.  Blogging has not been his top priority.

(Something to know about Greg, though, is he that loves sleep.  If given a choice between a solid 8 hours and ME, I’m not sure I would win.  I’ve actually come down in the middle of the night to find him sound asleep and smiling.  It’s not the early bedtime that’s been unusual lately, but the grunt work preceding it.  I live with an old man.)

So there you have it.  A little bit of an explanation on where we’ve been, and why it hasn’t been here.  Hopefully, we’ll have something fun and exciting to report.  If not, it’s likely the dog will eat something he’s not supposed to, and that’s always fun to talk about too.  Either way, we won’t be strangers any longer.  How about you do the same?

L’éducateur est venu te chercher… Tu es parti, mais dans quelles conditions !

Les derniers jours j’avais constamment peur, peur de ce que tu allais casser, des insultes, des coups possibles… Suis-je si mauvaise mère pour déclencher tant de haine ? Tes sœurs avaient attendu leurs 18 ans pour partir, avec la même colère, avec plus ou moins de réussite. Toi tu n’as pas 16 ans !

Le juge vous donne des circonstances atténuantes : absence du père, déracinement, souffrance… C’est vrai. Cela excuse-t-il l’agressivité, les insultes ? Je ne suis pas responsable de l’accident, mais j’étais là, seule face à votre détresse, perdue dans ma propre détresse.

J’ai certainement ma part de responsabilité, mais que penser de l’entourage qui vous couve depuis l’enfance ? Comment faire de vous des adultes si on vous cantonne dans le rôle de l’enfant ? Non tout ne vous est pas permis, la vie ne s’offre pas sur un plateau, elle se gagne, elle se mérite, vous devez l’apprendre par vous même. Je sais combien c’est difficile et je me sens tellement impuissante…

Aujourd’hui tu n’es pas là et tu me manques. Tu pensais trouver plus de libertés, mais je te sais sous surveillance. Comment réagis-tu ? Pas de nouvelles…

Notre séparation m’est douloureuse pourtant je la sais nécessaire. C’est notre dernière chance…

Vous m´excuserez de ce silence sur mon blog, mais en ce moment, au travail, une grande visite chamboule un peu les routines journalières. On attend la visite du grand chef de l´entreprise. Le personnel s´occupant de la “beauté” de l´établissement courent partout. Les vitres sont polies, les moquettes nettoyées, des corbeilles de fruits EXTRÊMEMENT bien variées, nos noms sur les postes de travail, des nouvelles plantes sont placées stratégiquement pour cacher des câbles. Bref, les bureaux n´ont jamais eu l´air aussi propres. On attend LE chef. Pas celui qui est au fond du couloir à gauche, ou celui qu´on ne voit jamais parce qu´il est en réunion tout le temps.

Non mes amis, on a le boss, THE ONE, venu direct des Etats Unis, pour visiter les locaux de Stockholm. Arrivé avec 5 limousines doubles vitrages, 17 gardes du corps, tellement protégé que même les pauvres petits flocons de neige de ce matin ne l´ont sûrement pas frôlé…Un vrai business man, placé d´après les statistiques dans les cinq premières places de CEO américains. Ce n´est pas n´importe qui.

Ce soir grande conférence dans un bel hôtel de luxe, moderne, au centre ville. L´organisation est faite depuis des mois, les buffets et boissons a volonté sont commandées depuis je ne sais pas combien de temps.

Tout d´un coup on entend plus parler de crise.  Typique non?

Recent research by Mercer has found that 35% of all sick leave is taken on Mondays but only 3% on Fridays. Which must mean the vast majority of those away on Monday are back in by Friday (if not Tuesday).

Mercer suggest that Monday sickness and frequent short-term absences can be a symptom of low employee engagement and morale. More cynical readers might wonder whether this might better be credited to weekend excess and little fear of the consequences of staying away.

Cynicism apart, the real lesson of this survey is that the sophistication of many HRIS systems makes detailed analyses easier than ever. Mercer extend their own analysis to consider differences between men and women and between full- and part-time staff. But why stop there? Many investigations into absence fail to be useful because they aggregate too many different causes and situations. Modern HRIS systems enable you to avoid that pitfall and the consequent over-generalisations.

Perhaps you should code in all the additional stuff you know about your staff and work out what proportion of the Monday sickies had been playing soccer or rugby at the weekend? Or rock climbing? Or sky diving? You might improve your absence statistics at a stroke by sifting out all those application forms that proudly fill up the ‘other activities’ box with such high-risk pastimes. After all, few train-spotters or embroidery enthusiasts end up in A&E on a Sunday afternoon.

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small,
it enkindles the great.
–Comte DeBussy-Rabutin

I would never tell you how your absence
is like the frigid autumn wind

that sweeps through empty streets
and sends the leaves skidding and scuffing
across pavement until they bounce
and accumulate in the gutters.
Little bundles of decaying color torn
from their perches to end up here.

Or how I am like the leaves -
at the mercy of the wind.

Once green, vivacious, thriving,
only to turn honey,apricot and ruby
at the approach of winter.
Ultimately, ripped away and sent
sputtering downward to collect in heaps -
lost in the gutter without you.

An ideal alternative perfectly fulfills every condition set for it without adding new difficulties. Unfortunately, ideal alternatives are rare. We must, therefore, evaluate each available alternative by measuring it against all of our objectives. It is the relative quality of that fit that concerns us.

If we must choose among several alternatives, we will have to decide which one will best fulfill our objectives with the smallest acceptable risk. In other words, we try to make a balanced choice. An alternative that best accomplishes the objectives but carries severe risks is not, after all, the best choice. Another alternative, perhaps less exciting but safer, may be the best balanced choice.

If there is only one alternative, we must decide whether it is good enough to accept. In this case our evaluation will focus on its relative worth compared with a perfect but unobtainable alternative.

If we must choose between a current and a proposed course of action, then we consider both to be alternatives. We evaluate their performance against our objectives just as we would if both had been proposed. Whatever is currently being done is, after all, an alternative; the choice is whether to continue that way or find another, better way.

If, in the absence of any alternative, we must create something new, we can usually build an alternative from available components. We then choose the best and most feasable combinations, treat each as a separate alternative, and evaluate all of them against an ideal model of an alternative.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

We’ve all heard the expression, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, but when it comes to estrangement, what role does geographical distance play?

A bit of a dichotomy to to consider: When you are in a conflictual relationship but live far away, the good news is,  you are unlikely to bump into your estranged family member at the corner store, or Sunday dinner. The bad news when you are in a conflictual relationship and live far away is, you are unlikely to bump into your estranged family member at the corner store, or Sunday dinner.

Some people insist that putting distance between the person (s) they are estranged from is a simple matter of self-preservation. These people argue that proximity heightens the issues, which led to estrangement and that remaining in closer contact would cause the situation to deteriorate even further. For instance, when estrangement occurs due to issues of reoccurring abuse, distance may be a fundamentally pragmatic decision. Consider the following; “My son has significant addiction issues. When he is permitted to live at home, or even regularly visit, insane things happen. Last time he threatened to kill my husband, and stole money from his sister. When Mitch is around we all get a little ‘crazy’. We love him, we just can’t be around him. Maybe things will be different if he ever cleans his act up. I don’t know.” Sometimes, we are the person who has the problem or who has done the ‘wrong’ thing.  The inability to forgive ourselves may be as much a barrier to reconnecting with our family as any rejection we may potentially experience from them. Distance can create a sense of safety in both directions. No more rejection, no more craziness. No more having to risk more hurt.

But distance can also breed anxiety.

Consider the words of a man who hasn’t spoken with his brother in over fifteen years, “I don’t talk to people who piss me off. My brother’s in Germany and I’m in Montana. I guess I won’t ever know if he still pisses me off. I get worked up even thinking about talking to him.” Distance has a way of removing the immediacy of relationship. A week of not speaking, slides into a month, slips into years. We may not even remember how or why the lack of communication began and have even less idea of how to remedy it. When enough time lapses, our focus turns to other people, other relationships – more pressing connections and less stressful communications. “I want to know my dad but I don’t know if he wants to know me. We both know where each other is, but no one is, you know, taking the step.”Taking the step to reconnect may be made even more difficult when you factor large distances into the picture. “My sister lives across the country. It’s not like we can just have a coffee together and talk.”

People have told me on numerous occasions that estrangement is exacerbated by geographical distance. Issues which may be readily dealt with when living in the same town or city, become insurmountable from the other side of the world. “My sister has this entirely skewed idea about me. There’s at least a dozen emails between us and each one sends us further into estrangement. It’s so frustrating! Twenty minutes of conversation in my living room could clear this right up.” Even with excellent writing skills, emails, letters, text messages and SMS’s are notorious for going sideways.

As is the way for most things which are touched by estrangement, there is no right or wrong answer to the distance equation. Different people and families will experience this issue in different ways. Some questions to ponder:

• Does geographical distance play a role in the estrangement in your family?
• Do you think matters would be better or worse if you were closer? Further away?
• Have you chosen to move in order to manage the tensions in your family?
• Does distance solve problems or create them?

‘Absence’ 2008

Project surrounding nostalgia and memory.

Experimental collages.

‘Absence’ ; 2008

This project began in attempt to erase my life. I was fascinated by the idea of removal, to find the objects connected to my childhood and remove my only last memories of days beyond my own memory. Objects hold a certain power – that of a reflective nature, to capture and contain a nostalgia we would later look back on with fondness. Memory is a fragile state, a collection of vague impressions and ideas about the past.

The project developed into a photo album, the same old leather albums that line my parents shelves containing happy memory after happy memory of time and places I have only a vague memory of.  I delicately went through a set of photographs from a family holiday in France, when I was only perhaps six or seven and removed the presence of anybody I could connect with.

As a result, I created a series of photographs that held no meaning, no purpose – only hollow images of vast and empty landscapes. Happy faces and nostalgia removed and replaced with only a curiosity; that for the viewer to explore.