Artist's Statement

From 1991-1996, I made a series of photographs of Lily Dale, a spiritualist community in western New York. Spiritualism is a loosely organized religion based primarily on a belief in the ability to communicate with spirits of the dead. In the photographs from Lily Dale, I eventually moved from producing portraits to making photographs that dealt more with my spiritual confusion and ambivalence. I found subjects such as light sources, window reflections and empty chairs, which, when photographed, might suggest a spiritual presence, but could also be easily interpreted as straightforward documents.