Artist Statement

As a rather clueless 20-something, most of what little memory I have is selective -- if anything, minuscule details, like the twitches per minute of my Mother's eye (as I drove our car into a ditch my very first time driving), or the hysteric-sad laughter that bubbled up at my Grandfather's funeral, seem to be the only things that really stick. Luckily for me, much of my childhood, as well as my two older brothers', was meticulously captured on tape by my Father. From birthday parties, to weddings, to sticky-fingered pumpkin-gut carving and lazy Sundays, my Dad somehow managed to capture it all. In fact, much of the space in our living room was devoted to countless VHS tapes, lovingly titled "Kenny's stuff, Stephen's 12th Birthday" or "Heather's Dance," in his nearly illegible scrawl. My memories, and the memory of my family long before I was born, are but a VCR away. Candid eye-rolls, moments of love (and pure annoyance) -- they're all there, thanks to my Dad, always a chuckle away, just beyond the view of the camera.

It is this devotion to capturing a moment, and allowing the rest of the family the space to really live in it, that first attracted me to film.

I suspect it had the same affect on my brother, Stephen, who first indoctrinated me into the cult of movies. Film is not only our way to remember our past, but our way to escape a coughing fit when we've the flu, to understand worlds and perspectives that are out of reach or foreign to us, to share that moment of pure amazement when we realize how beautifully done a shot really is. Movies are our language of love -- it's how we share parts of ourselves. And I think that that exact sentiment is what I hope to achieve, both in my own work and my evaluation and appreciation of others'. I just want to share a moment with you (yes, YOU), share myself, and allow whoever the heck else is reckless enough to participate in that... to be able to enjoy themselves, in the moment, free of the fear of forgetting.