a portrait of a town
As a third culture kid and something of a nomad (I’ve lived in nine towns or cities over four countries – some of them twice – in the past ten years), much of my work deals with notions of place and identity.

A Portrait of a Town is composed of photographs of the middle-Japan town where I lived for a total of three and a half years- longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my adult life. In a very real sense, this is my home. I am more part of Shimosuwa than I have ever been anywhere else. On the other hand, in Japanese, the word for foreigner is written “outside person”. I’ll never be Japanese, and I remain an outsider. With the transient’s suspicion of belonging anywhere, I find myself doubly removed.

Anthropologists understand society through the eyes of those on the edges; those who feel they don’t wholly belong. Artists, too, step back to gain perspective. In Shimosuwa, as a resident outsider, this distance allowed me to not just explore the town, but also to investigate my uncomfortable relationship with home and belonging. I long to cross the threshold, yet stand just outside the doorway, looking in.