Decay

Decay began around the end of 2017. I had resolved to write down my feelings to document how they were changing over time after a friend had just told me how much I had changed since earlier that year. I noticed what I tended to focus on was small things, little worries, how one of the girls I had been seeing might have made an offhand comment that bothered me for days, over analyzing my every interaction with anyone and everyone, mostly my lovers. This focus on the small combined with the focus on my lovers saw me buy myself a bouquet of one of my favorite flowers, lilies. These lilies, bright white and beautiful, a hopeful bunch of buds about to bloom. I photographed this bouquet repeatedly as it first bloomed in full, and then slowly dried out, wilted, withered and died. These decayed lilies, what was once symbolic of hope now dead forever. I interrupted the photographs I took with text from those journals. The text is repeated several times over the entire image until it becomes an additional layer of texture, obscuring the image when viewed close and revealing a secret world when seen from afar. These images are then printed large, to enhance the effects of scale, in a medium called cyanotype, whose hues of blue impart a coldness felt most as the flowers enter their final stage of wilting. I’ve been told in the past not to sweat the small stuff, but it’s those little details that make up the bigger picture. Each word a contribution to the greater story. Every petal of every flower another demonstration of beauty. Look not only at the bigger picture, but sometimes also do sweat the small stuff too.