My relentless documentation started with scrapbooks. Daily, I could be found in my room, door closed, sitting on my bed cutting and pasting. I deconstructed magazines, making collages of the glossy pages. I rearranged text and letters to form pseudo poetry accompanied by visual aids taken from advertisements. I started my first journal when I was 15. It was spiral-bound with a thick cover. I decorated it with cuttings from a provocative Altoids ad and photos of my favorite bands cut from Rolling Stone. The pages contained movie stubs, notes passed between friends, a collage of Converse All Stars: a tribute to my crush and the details of every outing with friends and arguments with my mother. There were inserts containing newspaper articles, photographs and illustrations glued to construction paper. The content was trivial, the theme anecdotal at best, but it was nothing if not damn thorough. 

I’ve had a compulsion for new experiences from an early age. Living near the 4H extension office, where country kids could expand their horizons through agriculture, each summer I took a week-long cooking class for children. They taught the same thing each year: mac n’ cheese, strawberry jam and chocolate chip cookies. After several summers they finally started offering an advanced class where we learned the culinary art of baked chicken. When I became bored with the repetitive curriculum I enrolled in a photography class where I was the only person under the age of 60. Most of the students were retired and looking for a hobby; landscapes, portraits of pets and grandchildren. I remember standing in my front yard with a little point-and-shoot, so precious with those 30 exposures. I took photos of crows exclusively.

In high school I began using my friends as models. When I got my drivers license I explored nearby ghost towns and old barns soon to be blown over by the wind. I was fascinated by places where I was told I shouldn’t be, never letting a ‘no trespassing’ sign stand in the way of adventure. I won second place at a photography competition with a black & white photo of my best friend wearing a sheet of tree bark as a dress; I thought myself an artist. 

My creative exploration began long before I was exposed to the world. In my small midwestern town I saw no models for people living life against the grain. In the same community where my parents and grandparents were from, where I was expected to stay. But I felt most at home outside of my comfort zone. I talked to people on the outskirts of my community and took their photos. I was fuelled by curiosity and captivated by different perspectives on living