This project is ongoing. I am seeking a grant to finish the coast of California.

Psychology tells us that memory is not as reliable as we would like to believe and that, more often than not, memories lie in the gray area between reality and distortion.

I find it interesting that what makes us who we are is our memory, yet it is unreadable. Each time we access a memory we are not remembering the event or person but our last recollection of the memory and they degrade over time. Memories are, for the most part, imperfect representations of the past that are altered, fragmented, reconstructed and reinterpreted in our minds. These photographic images I have made reference memory in an abstract form. I have taken photographs that have a significant memory for me and abstracted them down to the pixels to fragment the person or event in each one. Although these images are personal to me the abstraction makes them relevant to anyone as a photograph of a memory.

Shoal: \’shōl\: any group of fish that stays together for social reasons is said to be shoaling.

We spend our days living among others, interacting with others, and forming relationships with others. Despite this continuous interaction, we are all essentially alone. Our thoughts, unknown to surrounding people, follow us all day wherever we go. When no one is around we have only our bodies and our thoughts to keep us company. Much like shoaling fish, we congregate and interact for social reasons, whether to benefit ourselves or others. \shōl\ is a reflection of the true state of humans. Every group, family, social, etc., is comprised of isolated individuals that are alone despite being part of a group. How one makes use of this fact determines one’s outlook on life.