Shenandoah Journey

The pandemic upended my world. Grieving from the death of my father and my mother’s decline into dementia, my family moved from the outskirts of Washington D.C. at the start of Covid. I found myself in lockdown in rural Virginia on a secluded 20-acre mountaintop wondering how one fits into a community and how community is related to the land that both encompasses and outlasts it. The infrared images in Shenandoah Journey depict lessons offered by the stunning landscape that surrounded me and provided wise answers to my awkward, unsettled questions.  

Even as I felt like an outsider in a place where locals characterize folks into “Come Here’s” or “From Here’s”, I discovered that those lines of demarcation were overly simplistic. Not only were people friendly and welcoming, but the people I first viewed as  belonging here were also struggling with their sense of identity. In this economically-challenged farming community, more and more people were moving here from larger cities, just as I had done. I discovered that one of the unspoken tests to judge someone’s mettle was whether the newcomer wanted to swoop in and change things or whether he or she recognized the value of what already existed here. As a symbol of the many changes facing the community, Stonewall Jackson High School was renamed Mountain View to the dismay of many who felt like their traditions and history were being usurped. Beyond the polite chitchat at the grocery store, people struggled to make sense of how they viewed themselves and how they fit into the community.

Through it all, the area’s magnificent scenery offered wise lessons for all who lived in its embrace, both newcomers and old alike. This is a place of sweeping vistas, framed in by mountains, and we are made small in this tremendous space. This land has seen and outlasted the Shendo and Catawbas Indian tribes, the first European settlers with their land grants, and German immigrants seeking religious freedom. The land literally holds the ruins of the devastating destruction of the Civil War. Wandering through fields, one discovers the rubble of buildings, abandoned and now intertwined with vines as the resilient land asserts itself. Any sense of self and community are both humbled and framed by the land’s obvious and lasting predominance.  

I discovered that questions of identity and belonging are grounded literally and metaphorically in the land that encompasses us all. In this time of climate change, that lesson holds true for all, but is perhaps more easily recognized when one lives in the breathtaking surroundings of the Shenandoah Valley. This understanding lent itself well to infrared photography since infrared captures light invisible to the human eye and finished images often reveal features that were not initially visible. What first appears in my camera as a hazy, red image is transformed into a detailed study of the land, subtly shaded with colors that reveal themselves as the creative process progresses in the studio. Infrared serves as a subtle metaphor for how the concept of self is connected to nature, and from that literal grounding, further discoveries of identity and community can flourish. My Shenandoah Journey  burrows deep into the soil of my new home to acknowledge the unsettled awkwardness of what it means to be human, desiring to be at home in myself while striving for something beyond and acknowledging the smallness of that need in the face of the land that encompasses us all.