Tag Archives: midwest

May 14, 2017 – After The Tornado

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I wouldn’t ever expect most people to have their thumb on the pulse of what happens in small towns in the middle of Kansas, but today’s photograph comes from a little place called Greensburg. In May of 2007 around nine o’clock at night, an EF5 tornado tore through the city center. Estimated at 1.7 miles in width, with winds in excess of 200 mph, it was later confirmed that ninety-five percent of the entire community had been destroyed by the tornado.

The above photograph was taken on November 1st, 2012, more than five years after the devastating storm. A tremendous amount of rebuilding has been done, but there are whole grids of roads that used to be housing subdivisions that are, today, just empty lots with foundations not entirely different from this one.

I drive through this town every time I return to Kansas City from my Arizona home to visit family. I stop at the same gas station every time I pass through.

Greensburg, twelve days after the 2007 tornado.

After the tornado, the Greensburg city council passed a resolution stating that all city buildings would be built to ‘LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum’ standards, making it the first city in the nation to do so. Greensburg has been rebuilding as a “green” town, with just the right name to support the decision. At this point in time, the city’s power is supplied by ten 1.25 MW wind-turbines, which can been seen blanketing the plains outside of town.

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January 26, 2017 – Black and White

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One of my friends – more of an activist, politically motivated, and extreme personality – once commented that my work specifically seeks to “mean nothing at all.” This was over a decade ago, but I remember the comment; it made me think a lot about the kinds of images I was making at the time. I didn’t feel insulted, but I did feel compelled, initially, to try and defend myself.

My natural instinct was to disagree (and I did disagree), but it was the first time I really sat down and tried to apply meaning to the photographs and paintings I was making. And it made me think about the utility of abstract imagery in a broad and general sense, too.

I don’t think all artwork needs to be a didactic teaching tool, or direct the thoughts and emotions of the viewer. In fact, in many circumstances, I have a contrary opinion. I am seduced by abstract compositions specifically because they can mean any number of things to any number of people. The possibilities aren’t infinite. Color, movement, composition, film grain, delicate or light brush strokes – these all guide our interpretation and emotional response. But abstract compositions allow us to think broadly about how an image impacts us, and the experience of viewing abstract art becomes very personal. An abstraction can remind us of a specific event, a movie we watched, an experience we had – and in an almost slight-of-hand kind of way, through some peculiar magic, an image made by a complete stranger can ascend to significance in the hearts and minds of the individuals looking at it.

I am compelled to make pictures like this for reasons that still evade me, but I make them because they affect me, they move me, they touch a part of my subconscious and tickle a part of my mind. I can’t expect images like this to be universally adored, but I have to have faith, as an artist, that there are other people out there, like me, who find this kind of composition interesting.

The hardest thing for an artist to do is follow their instincts. If I listened to all of the criticism, all I would do is try to mimic the landscapes of Ansel Adams or take endless ‘desert sunset’ pictures. There are plenty of those images in the world, and I just need to make images of my very own.

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January 16, 2017 – Snow Field

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What better way to embrace the winter than by making photographs and artwork that celebrate it? We’re in that stretch of winter where things often start to really slow down; I know a lot of people who dread the upcoming February storms. I left the Midwest to escape the cold, but whenever I return I feel as though I have a much deeper appreciation for the natural beauty of the Plains States, as flat and sparse as the landscapes often are.

We always take a little bit of our home town with us when we leave.

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January 31 – Farm Country

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01-31 Kansas Barn post“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

~Henry David Thoreau

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One of my occupations, of late, has involved walking around the city. During these urban hikes I keep a sharp eye out and I try to keep in mind my own individual, physical perspective. As a challenge to myself, I’ve been re-imagining the familiar neighborhoods, shopping centers, roadways, and walking paths. The city – the concrete and steel, the timber boxes of row houses and the carved-out subdivisions – has so thoroughly consumed all of the wild, untouched areas I grew up around, so I’ve been looking for spaces untouched by development.

This barn sits on the intersection of Interstate-435 and 87th Street Parkway. It is in the eye of the storm. To the right of this red barn, just off-camera, is the off-ramp and a line of cars waiting to merge onto 87th Street. Behind the barn is a field, probably two miles deep, before a thicket of housing, strip malls, and office buildings. Across the street from this barn is a McDonald’s, a Taco Bell, and a supermarket.

I don’t know the story behind this tract of land, but I’m guessing there’s a stubborn landowner who has refused generous offers on his property. I applaud such action, if only because I enjoy the basic concept of a person saying no to cold hard cash – it forces each of us to consider the possibility that there are indeed things more important than money.

I this small slice of untouched land. A little reminder of what the whole surrounding territory probably looked like a generation ago, before all of this “progress.”

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January 28 – The Lone Tree

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01-28 The Lone Tree post“Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.”

~Mark Twain

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There’s a lone tree in a field along Kenneth Road south of the city. It’s a tiny family-owned plot of earth with a sign that proudly boasts “Welcome To Kenneth – Population 10” in drips white paint. A couple of ramshackle barns litter the adjacent field. Along the fence-line on the south end of the property is the family plot; a dozen or so headstones jut out from the island of manicured grass.

Family farms are becoming rare in the post-industrial age, but every now and again there’s a slice of land owned by hardened farm workers, proud to have held onto the family farm, and exclaim with bravado the number of generations their bloodline has worked the soil.

This place is the epitome of the Midwest – open spaces, flat fertile fields, and the whisper of the prairie wind in your ears. There’s a calm to the Great Plains that’s as unique a sensation as standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. An ocean of water flows beneath your feet. On a cloudy day at dusk, there’s electricity in the air – a current strong enough that you can feel it on your skin and the hair on your arms stands up.

There’s nothing more beautiful on this planet than looking across a field uncorrupted by concrete and automobiles, monumental spires and neon light. Our cities are a grand thing, too, but in a different way. And certainly these fields have been sculpted by human hands. But to my mind, a properly run family farm is one of the last places a person can find a healthy balance between human intervention and nature.

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