The Woods

The Woods depicts my journey that is both personal and universal, actual and metaphorical, from a liminal time when I was seeking meaning and finding insight through solitude and self-reflection. After the profound transition of ending a marriage while raising a child led me to re-examine my early childhood wounds, I found myself drawn into the woods, as I had been in my youth.

Growing up in a tense, unhappy family, as a child I sought solace by retreating into a wild, wooded area near my home. I escaped into nature, and into solitary fantasies I created, fueled by fiction and imagination. The woods became my oasis; and as my own daughter now approaches adolescence, I see that she too is drawn to the stillness she finds in nature. Her world is hyper-connected and overwhelming and as she struggles to define herself, I’m reminded of how (paradoxically) it was only through letting go of endless searching that I finally felt peace, both as a child and as an adult. Working with my daughter in the creation of this photographic series brought duel perspectives to it; hers as the subject, seeker and wanderer, mine as the creator and observer – as we together find respite in the journey.

Drawing on fairy tales and mythology as strong visual influences, I’ve deliberately mixed beauty and dark symbolism to show both the allure and implied danger inherent in venturing into the unknown. As Joseph Campbell writes in The Power of Myth about self knowledge, “The dark moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light."