Town Totems photographs with collage, 8” x 10”

These collages were created during a time when I was caring for a loved one and couldn’t travel, even to the nearby California desert where I normally spent so much time. I began poring over an old paper atlas, cutting out the names of towns and places I longed to visit, or whose names connected to my own past—or just simply made me smile.

Over time, my love of the language took over—the town names began to feel almost alive. I felt connected not only to places I had lived or visited, but also to ones I had never heard of. The result is a series of fictional geographical monuments layered onto my own photographs of Joshua Tree National Park.