My book, Sweeping The Graves, is now published in a series of 20. The book contains quotes and observations of the many sacred experiences I had the privilege of witnessing while working as a hospice social worker. It contains 10 images, 11 stories and a sheet of Joss paper in the back of the book that you may burn in memory of your own loved one. Each book is printed, stitched and assembled by me, signed and numbered. I am thrilled to have finally completed this labor of love after so many years of working on it.
I am thrilled to have made Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 200 list for 2024 for my project Real But Not True. I am deeply grateful to the screening jurors of Photolucida for supporting my work and honored to be among so many enormously talented artists who have inspired me over the years.
Real But Not True is a project that speaks to all the bits and ramblings we carry around in our brains: the circular thinking, the obscure and mysterious language of dreams and the relentless mind chatter that we struggle to escape from when we are trying so desperately to sleep. It explores this experience through the lens of fragmentation and anxiety. Collage is used as the foundational technique, where disparate elements such as found photographs and my own captured images are layered with leather, mica, paper and wood. These fragments of materials and techniques serve as windows into different times and narratives, creating a dialogue between memory and identity, between sleeping and waking, between what feels real and what is, or is not, true.
Photo | Object
I’m very grateful to Kirsten Hoving for curating my work into the Photo | Object show at the Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC. The show will hang until March 16th, 2024.
Teaching Photographic Objects at Maine Media Workshops
Every year, I am lucky enough to take a trek up to Rockport, Maine to teach a Photographic Objects class. Being surrounded with rich creative artists is a true gift. Over the years, it’s a real touchstone to get to visit with friends made over the years, make new friends and watch amazing artists interpret their photography through a three dimensional world. It never fails to inspire me. This year was no exception.
Mary Virginia Swanson and Susan Kae Grant were teaching on campus the same week which was incredibly fortuitous since we were able to share with each’s other’s classes and learn from one another. MMW is such an oasis and I am very grateful to have the opportunity to be connected with this wonderful institution.
My deep thanks to Greg Banks, Aline Smithson and Lenscratch for the article published on my work. You can read the article here
The Rock In The Storm
During the month of March, I was finally able to show The Silent Year series at the Gatewood Gallery on the campus of UNC-Greensboro in Greensboro, NC. This body of work had never been shown before and I was thrilled to be able to be given this opportunity. The fact that it was shown at my alma mater is pure icing on the cake.
The Silent Year images were created during the pandemic and reflecting back on the three years since it was created, my relationship to it has morphed into something beyond what it was initially created about. This installation introduced several different mediums and mutations of the original series to activate and infuse energy into it in different ways.
The photographic labyrnth is something that I’ve wanted to create for many years and I couldn’t be happier that it was realized during this show with a whole lot of help from the wonderful students at UNC-G. There are also large scale silks to provide intimate spaces, a wall of 11 assemblages, a wall of hand colored images housed in folded reliquary shrines, prints and photo objects.
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Ephemerality. Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Portland, ME
I’ve been curated into the show, The Morphing Medium: Photographic Books, Installations, Alternative Processes and Ephemera at the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts in Portland, Maine. The show is up through December 3, 2022. Thank you to Denise Froehlich for this wonderful opportunity.
I am interviewed on their site as a featured artist which you can read here.
Teaching at Maine Media College
I can’t say that I’m still super comfortable in the “teaching” role, but I can say that I absolutely love meeting wonderful and talented artists that inspire me and teach me. I had a wonderful time with the Advanced Techniques Photographic Objects Class held on the campus of Maine Media in September. Hope to be back next year!
I have had the honor of collaborating with my friend Sal Taylor Kydd during the pandemic for a project called Touchstones. It’s a body of work that contains images and poems much like a call and response. We had the honor of showing this work in Texas at the A Smith Gallery during January and February, 2022.
The show will next be in Cary, North Carolina at the end of April and we are thrilled to be launching our book, A Passing Song as well.
Grace of Our South
My partner in crime Tim, is like a shy hermit crab when it comes to getting his work out in the world. So I was so happy when he agreed to participate in an article about what we do in our spare time. Exploring the back roads of North Carolina is one of our favorite things to do on the weekends. You can read about it on the Just Place website where it was published this week. Thank you to Ben for this wonderful opportunity.
https://www.justplace.us/grace
Photographic Objects at Maine Media Workshops and College
What a total blast to be able to teach in person at Maine Media in Rockport, Maine. The class was an amazing and inspiring group of creative energies and I was so honored to witness their journey in making photographic objects. I will definitely be looking forward to teaching in person again next year.
Filter Photo
Very honored to have my piece Illumination, on display at Filter Space during the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago, Illinois. The exhibit runs through October 30, 2021. You can read about the exhibition here: https://www.filterphoto.org/we-like-small-things-v4
Askew
let me hurl my questions of faith
against your wall
and see what sticks.
raw,
coarse,
consuming,
impolite,
questions.
what holds fast and what breaks free?
when it comes to love and war in the name of religion,
my cross is askew.
The Sun Magazine
Sincerely honored that Embodiment from The Silent Year projec, has been published in the May 2021 issue of The Sun Magazine.
One Twelve Publishing feature, Poignant Pictures
A very big thank you to One Twelve Publishing and Diana Nicholette Jeon for the spotlight on The Silent Year project. You can read the article in its entirety here:
https://onetwelvepublishing.com/blog/2021/pp26dsurratt
The Big Picture Colorado
So exciting to see Alchemy from the Silent Year project printed large, ready for wheat pasting on the side of the Redline Contemporary Art Center as part of the Big Picture Colorado in Denver. Thank you to Mark Sink for this thrilling opportunity.
it's been a year now
i miss the sound of an elevator door whooshing open and the loud ding of the bell that announces the floor,
the echo of people’s voices off of marble floors.
i miss the sound of dishes and glasses clinking as people dine
and the collective energy of people gathered together.
i miss the sound of the popcorn machine in the movie lobby
and the blaring intercom at the airport announcing flight departures.
the faint smell of someone’s cigarette as they sit and smoke on a stair stoop behind a restaurant during their break,
the taste of hot food from a restaurant kitchen.
i miss the varying decors of public spaces,
i miss museums and bookstores,
and most of all, i miss the arms of my daughter and my grandchildren
and my friends around me.
BETA Magazine
Deep thanks to Jeff Moorfoot for featuring The Silent Year in BETA Developments in Photography Issue #38.
goodbye 2020
thank you to each and every one of you who teach me how to be a better human through your strength, your humor and your radical acts of kindness.
to the destruction and exposure of hard truths that this year has brought, thank you. it's been a challenge and will continue to be, but I have learned so much.
to the many lives lost and those in mourning, my prayers are for you.
here's to building a world with greater understanding, compassion and awareness.
Wishing you all peace and love in this new year.
dawn
i am a continuing story in 60 chapters
(thus far)
a cabinet of curiosities
locked doors and a twisted key
bellows and bloodlines
the storm on the sea
the day’s first light
the trickster hare
run rabbit run