Being haunted draws us affectively, sometimes against our will and always a bit magically into the structure or feeling of a reality we come to experience, not as cold knowledge, but as a transformative recognition.( Gordon, Avery. Ghostly matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.)

The photographs, paintings, and collages in What Light Knows are the result of a three year collaboration with nine ghosts; nine women who died in the Highland Hospital fire in 1948.  Each of them were sedated and locked in their rooms at the time of the fire, deemed “unfit or wonderers”. Highland Hospital specialized in treating people who had been diagnosed with hysteria or what was then called nervous disorders. These diagnoses were frequently assigned to outspoken women with inconvenient opinions or passionate emotions.

The collaborations began with long exposure photographs shot at the former sight of Highland Hospital, located less than a mile from my home in Asheville, North Carolina.

I would shoot the images intuitively, often not viewing what had been captured until returning to my studio. The images were not always beautiful but they did always surprised me.

The strange animated light forms in the photographs compelled me to start creating collages and painting – a practice I have not engaged with for over 10 years. The expressive wildness in the photographs encouraged a wildness in my mark making and pallet choices. 

This body of work is an invitation to ask stranger questions, observe what may seem to be invisible, and acknowledge the many ways we are haunted.

I am grateful to my collaborators: Miss Janice R. Borochoff, Miss Marthina DeFriece

Mrs. Jules Doering (nee Mildred Belton), Mrs.Ida Engel (nee Ida Levi), Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald (nee Zelda Sayre), Mrs. Allen T. Hipps (nee Sarah Neely), Mrs. Virgina W. James ( nee Virginia Ward), Mrs. W. Bruce Kennedy (nee Ethlyn Avirette), Mrs. Gus C. Womack (nee Martha Oma Thompson).

I’ve been working on a photo series in response to a Kinship Photography prompt connected to the Bartram trail. William Bartram (b. 1739) was the son of a wealthy botanist in New England who, after failing in several business ventures decided that all he really wanted to do was walk through the woods and draw/write about what he saw. I can relate. Alas that sort of freedom is still only afforded to the whitest, wealthiest, and most testosterone saturated among us.

The Bartram trail is long and traverses through eclectic terrain including though at least one small town; Franklin, North Carolina. I started my Franklin journey at Nikwasi Mound, built over 1,000 years ago by Cherokee people and still considered a holy site by the nearby Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. It is now surrounded on all sides by small town sprawl; parking lots, gas stations, a CBD dispensary, a U-Haul rental facility, and a farm to table cafe. I spent over an hour circling this small mound. When it came time to continue my Bartram trail journey I had the choice to either venture towards a greenway along the Little Tennessee River that no doubt provided visitors with ample natural beauty; trees dripping in picturesque kudzu, sunlight twinkling through the full leaves of summer trees but instead I found myself most drawn to the kitschy splendor of downtown Franklin. There I discovered among other things; a gem store/museum full of treasures that white men found on stolen land then claimed as their own (arrowheads, stone pipes…), an antique shop spilling over with generations of things people had to have and then had to get rid of, a Scottish tartan museum, and a history museum with confederate soldier figurines, nineteenth century medical equipment, and a large display case containing a Nazi Flag and a Japanese flag – both captured during WWII by American soldiers.

I grew up in a small town and I have complicated feelings about them (and of course not all small towns are the same). But what I am usually struck by now is how many reminders there are about how to be a good, straight, white person. Whiteness was a cruel invention and requires ongoing maintenance to survive.

Sylva, North Carolina

There is a rock in western North Carolina surrounded by fences and interpretive signs.

Located on unceded Cherokee land, Judaculla Rock is the largest petroglyph in the eastern United States with over 1,000 symbols carved into the flat soapstone surface.

I first experienced Judaculla Rock in 2017, on the afternoon of the total lunar eclipse, two weeks before my 40th birthday, standing on a hill above the rock as day became night. Maybe it was the impact of suddenly being surrounded by stars or my renewed awareness of mortality but I felt something I can only describe as magic on that day, in that spot.

When I returned a few months later I was struck by the interpretive signs, fences, and walkways - all designed to frame and situate my encounter in a particular way; a way that privileges the written word, preservation, and private property. Whose knowledge makes a place knowable? Whose boundaries matter?

Is there a way to show the magic I feel present without redoubling the hegemony these interpretations imply?