As we grow older we go through various stages, and with them comes change. An Open Book is a visual journal of one of these changes in my life. The work portrays the emotions I have been feeling about becoming an adult and parting with my childhood. This is a hectic period of pressure, confusion, adaptation, and growth. It is a mammoth endeavor as well as a difficult balancing act. Equally difficult is the parting with a time so comforting and familiar.
Each book contains a thought or emotion about this step into adulthood. The viewer opens the cover, and through this action encounters an intimate experience. Inside lies an illustration of an emotional place which relates to the title of the book. The photographs in the collages come from personal family albums.
Accompanying the books are photographs of landscapes depicting a now defunct and dilapidated campground. They appear out of focus which blurs the playground obstacles to replicate the feeling of a fading memory. The dull but saturated colors in the images convey a warmth and sense of affection associated with memory. The photographs reveal a long forgotten plain filled with hearty laughs, teary eyes, bruised knees and first kisses. Now it is left untouched to serve as a graveyard for childhood memories to rest and grow old. It's a place which radiates with nostalgia.
