This photo series constitutes my response to a prompt from Robert Hamilton to create a series of 10 still photographs that examines “the neighbourhood where you live”. The work involves a loose interpretation of street photography, which I have here taken both literally and figuratively, imagining “the street” not merely as the trajectory I traverse on foot, via-velo, or by Toyota, but also as that deep-time path traced by such “natural” travelers as shale, dolomite, and ice. I have likewise extended the notion of “neighborhood” so as to include among my “neighbours” the palpable presence of ghosts, both in Caledonia, where I live, and in (and en-route to) Hamilton, where I study and exhibit. My only regret is that I lack sufficient telescopic optics to adequately expand my neighborhood (and hopefully my circle of empathy) further out into the cosmos. I invite you to explore these panoramas in detail by zooming in. To this end, all images are clickable.
Twelve Thirty
Should I be heaved, or be hooved
to follow the grid and not the groove
of these twelve (and) thirty paces?
Desalination Plant
Come clean; come glean a wintry sheen;
demineralize your ride
confide in the shine!
Donation Bin
Donations are welcome, but
we know
where you live.
After the Burning
A breach of safety lit the building up in flames,
Prefiguring in kind a breach of safety fence
After the burning.
Ditch
Wind reanimates perpetual peace talks
between earth and ice
on the shoulder of Highway 6.
Escarpmeant
The Grimsby Shale never asked to be named,
nor to be on the bottom. Thorold’s overbearing form
eschewed consent: hence the icy vibe?
Boarders
You, the stickers on your skateboard,
and even the chiseled serifs of typography itself,
will one day rot under boards.
Winter Maintenance
I stare at this case, this stair case,
the way it weeps salt-saturated tears of the sort
only January could muster.
_ary Ann, Daugh. Of
They say plastic flowers don’t wilt,
but they do.
It just takes a little longer.
Groundplay
This one is for all the children
who never had a chance
to play on the slide.