Rooted in Red

I believe confidence comes from pride: pride in my place in Maine and in who that place has made me. I feel comfortable and anchored, not because I am tied to one particular location, but because of the family and friends who surround me, and in the strength I draw from my spirituality.

While traveling recently in Madrid, I encountered this same sense of pride on a larger, cultural scale. Everything felt bold, strong, and beautiful, yet expressed with extraordinary elegance.

This body of work is rooted in that feeling: pride, strength, and confidence, but photographed at home, in Maine.

Each photograph is strong on its own. When brought together, however, the images take on an additional strength.

The collection reflects the rugged, hardworking character of Maine’s people, those who work its fields, waters, and sustain its working waterfronts without showing a single face or hand. Their presence is revealed instead through worn marks, bundles of line, weathered wood, and objects shaped by salt and sea, just as the people themselves have been. In these details, we see both struggle and strength. We see how a symbol of pride and boldness can weather, endure, and withstand.

There is intimacy in these photographs, but also mystery, solitude, and stillness. This is a collection about how coastal Maine wears its color. Bold red is the thread that pulls the images together. It repeats throughout, bright and beautiful even as it fades in the elements or peels from weathered structures. Against Maine’s serene world of blues and greens, red becomes a declaration, while turquoise quietly becomes its stage.

Although much of the work depicts weathered surfaces and objects, this is not a collection about the past. It is about the present: the character of a people; their pride, strength, and endurance; and the beauty created by salt, sea, and time.