Growing up in the American south, I have always felt a deep connection to home, place, nature, and the way that these things intertwine like overgrown muscadine vines becoming part of an aged tree. I spent most of my time outdoors as a child, and I have always felt the most at peace in nature. When I was a baby, my parents realized that when I cried, they only had to take me outside and I would stop crying. The connection between place and family are inextricably bound together in my work. When I am walking in the woods seeking my subjects, I can’t help but think of my grandmother collecting native plant seeds and specimens for her garden, or my mother identifying which plants are edible and which must not be touched. It is these things that I have in mind as a gather my subjects, sometimes taken from their existing place, isolated, and photographed with my flatbed scanner, sometime simply documented with my camera. By this method, I am able to visually evaluate these subjects and how they serve as metaphors and connecting my past to present, place to people.