Artist Statement

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania surrounded by trees and fields, and maybe because of that bucolic setting ultimately found myself drawn to the contrast of industrial structures.

These places became more like temples to me than the rotting industrial carcass most would take them for. I visited the steel mill religiously for many years. It made me feel small, and made me realize the significance of what work was in an industrial society.

The mills made real for me what we had done in America, as well as what that work had done to us. Our industries and manufacturing helped to build our country while we destroyed entire nations, engaging in wars that fed immigrant workers and put their children though college at home, and at the same time wreaked havoc abroad.

These dark, abandoned spaces that I find terribly beautiful have somehow fully come into their history, and I want to tell that story. I specialize in historic preservation because these sites are an extension of ourselves—their cautionary tales are our own.