Video

Water Catchers, single channel video, projected on wall (10:59)

Well Stories, excerpt from single channel video, run on 32” flat screen (19:26)

Installation View

South Bend Museum of Art

Artist’s Statement

Well Stories is a project about our relationship with the water we drink. For over a year now, I have been photographing and videotaping old artesian wells and the people who visit them.

The inspiration for this project came while I was working on a series of photographs about rural culture in the Midwest. As I traveled to small towns to photograph, I would occasionally hear remarkable stories about public wells from those who lived near them. Local residents would enthusiastically describe the good-tasting water they could get from a flowing pipe in the center of town or on an obscure county road. I would drive to the wells and see people (at times in queues) pull up in cars, fill containers with water, and drive off.

It was a revelation to me that anyone in the 21st-century United States would drink water that comes from a pipe in the ground and would choose to make a trip to gather water rather than turn on a tap at home. I wanted to find out more about people who get their water this way.

Artesian (or flowing) wells are fed from a confined aquifer containing groundwater that is pressurized and flows upwards, without need for a pump. These wells are filtered naturally and in some cases have been flowing for thousands of years. They represent a vestige of the public commons, and often mark very early human settlements.

I am fascinated by the local culture that has grown around these wells and am photographing both the wells and the people who gather water there. Some say they make the trip simply because they like the taste of well water, while others tell me they do not have access to good water in their homes.

This exhibition explores our relationship with water on a number of levels. In a broad sense, it reflects on the primacy of the connection between water and life. It also explores the concept of ‘ownership’ of water, by replacing a consumer-driven perception of water as a commodity with a more indigenous understanding of water as a local resource. In some instances, it illustrates how a lack of resources and environmental degradation have resulted in people losing access to clean water in the United States, a country that nowadays tends to take its water for granted.

Installation Views:

Snite Museum of Art — Lodz Fotofestwal

Artist’s Statement

The photographs in this series are part of a five-year project on rural culture in the Midwest, particularly in my home state of Indiana. This work was inspired by my memories of growing up on a farm in Walkerton, Indiana, and observing first hand the shifting cultural identity that has occurred over time and through changing economic development.

When I first moved back to Walkerton in 2001, one of my biggest complaints was that there were not enough places to eat out. Or, rather, practically no places to eat out. So I was happy when news arrived that a new restaurant was opening there. Imagine my surprise when I read a letter to the editor in the local paper against the new restaurant. The letter stated that we already had enough places to eat in this town. The writer counted a total of fourteen places to eat, which included four restaurants, three gas stations, four bars, a truck stop, a convenience mart, and a bowling alley. This letter was published during the beginning of my project portraying small-town life, and it gave the series its name.

These photos mirror my personal history, but I also wanted to tell a people’s history grounded in a sense of place. My intention was to celebrate rural life, without idealizing it.

Although my work can be described as documentary, my approach is that of a participant observer. I am concerned with the ways in which rural tradition and history are interpreted and transformed in the present day. I often photograph home-made, decorative artifacts that express something about a community’s common ideas and values.

In this series I show the effects of the demise of local economies that historically sustained rural communities. Many of my images contain the remains of an earlier time when locally owned stores and family farms were the norm. Today chain stores and agribusiness are prevalent in rural communities. These communities are struggling to thrive in the global economy, and my images reflect that reality.

Patriotism is a thread that connects many of the images in this work. I used images of patriotic symbols to reflect the community’s faith in their country, often in the face of devastating economic collapse. To me, this sentiment appears to be grounded in a mixture of blind faith, nostalgia, and courage.