Provincetown: What Remains
---
This is my artist statement, and images, from my recent show with Expressions Gallery in Chatham, Massachusetts.
---
Since the arrival of Europeans over 400 years ago, Provincetown has seen constant changes. Its population over those four centuries has included Native Americans, the Pilgrims, Portuguese fisherman, rum runners, counter-culture hippies, artists, LGBTQ people, and men dying from AIDS. At the same time, there exists here a fierce attachment to the way things were—ask any local and even some visitors, and they will usually tell you that Provincetown was better in some past era.
Globally today, change is happening rapidly in politics, economics, war, technology, and just about every other aspect of our lives. It’s also happening street by street and dune by dune in Provincetown, as many Town icons (human, institutional, structural, natural) die, erode, get sold to outside corporations, or otherwise disappear.
The images that you see here are my way of demonstrating this change and how it makes me feel. They are a far departure from my usual “straight” way of shooting, and that is very much intentional.
Photography, for me, is about preserving a moment in time and the feeling I associate with that moment. I made this collection of Provincetown images to remind myself that what I see today—all these things that I usually photograph in a sharp and clear and very much real way—have a future that I cannot see or understand.
These images help me think about the present and reflect on what came before me and what might come long after I am gone. Some make me feel unsettled, while others give me hope that today’s changes will ultimately lead to a time and place that is better than right now.
