Oh my.

Am I to start at 11 years old? When a dusty camera found its way to me through the will of someone I barely knew, who couldn’t have known that I’d grow up to be me- as I sure didn’t even know it then? I began photographing all those unfathomable adolescent years out of pure boredom, and then in increasing sentiments as a desperate attempt to bend Time to stillness. Those years I always felt like Time was trying to run away from me. And so, by some otherworldly law, the camera became my holy companion in some pursuit to just remain.

A memory I am often reminded of, is one of a couple years ago- I was sitting next to someone I love in Louisiana, my birth home, and they asked me what Heaven would look like for me if I got to choose it. I surprised us both with my answer, but very sincerely after moments of pondering, I remember realizing- “Just earth really, I love this place.” I think I may have been 22 when I came to know that about myself, which was the age where I feel like my spirit really began to show herself.

I lived those first 22 years of my life in Louisiana, whose name I say with an audible trace of adoration. I have written- and will continue still- to write love letters to the entity that is Louisiana, as she raised me like any great southern mother would. With her best, with kisses, with heat, water, and mud. And when my golden year came around in 2020 I felt like I kept losing at life- which, given many circumstances of that year I think we were all prone to our own shares of losing. So, I thought if I wanted to quit all my losing I better go figure something else out. And by the guidance of my often-trembling heart, I landed in the North Fork Valley of Colorado. It is these mountains- fullfaced of grace and grit- who I now call home. Colorado is raising me through womanhood, as any wild midwestern mother would- through dust and hardy weeds like Dandelion. Through seasons, who are each my favorite visitors. Through the way the moon’s phasing and glowing is my own mirror and the sun’s evergreen greeting in each new day is the same devotion and fuel that lights fire to some invisible path I stroll. I remember my first month here, I was telling a new friend that my body was still adjusting to how dry it is and all she said was, “Ah yes, you’ll want to stay then. And if you give back to this valley as much as it gives to you, you’ll discover your own juiciness.”

I mention all these tender stories, because as I sit here and trail around the spiral of my spirit asking it for the “why” behind all of my making, there is a wellspring of memories just like these at its core. Who each just smile back at me as if to say, “You must, you must, you must. Because, you love- you looooove… you love.” And what better way to celebrate what you love than to make it your muse? To find beauty’s lair and share it with the rest of us, who are longing to know we aren’t alone in all this exquisite mundanity. To not only be a witness to Time’s gifts of change, growth, age, but to reflect Time’s own beauty back to her, as a way to celebrate her.

To this day, cameras remain my marrow, but my relationship with them has drastically changed since I was 11 years old. In that, where I used to see them as tools to suspend time, bitter that she was too fast for me, I now understand these sacred instruments as I understand myself- devotees to Time’s reverie and our passage through her. Knowing now, that she is often strolling behind us, freely inviting us to slow down, treasure the wonderment of her collaboration with life and take the walk side by side.

And so on this earth, who by some miracle became a symbol of heaven to me, and in the ephemera that is our existence, I make because I must! Because I love! For beauty’s sake and in thanks to Time, the shepherdess of my spirit. For you & for me. For life herself.

In exceeding Love,

Sky