In Ernest Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast (1964), he wrote: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” He wrote this about struggling to write.

I have not posted on this blog since September 2024. That is a hard truth. I haven’t wanted to.

A lot has happened in the year since then. There has been a building career epiphany, heartbreak, travel, horses, trailers, a new coffee machine, daily journaling, academic papers, my first photo book, concerts, new lectures, new students, a coming workshop, docs, an exit from social media, new businesses, friends, workout routines, haircuts, Japan, stolen bikes, lost classes and a lot of americanos.

All that, and not a word shared in this new form of art I’ve been gravitating toward: writing.

And oh, Ernest—it’s not that I struggle with writing. I write pretty much every day at this point. I struggle with sharing. I struggle with dividing my personal daily existence from my art. I struggle with my own inability to keep from creeping on Instagram and my daily addiction to scrolling.

So allow me to proliferate on my life updates and my next verse in the powerful play that goes on.

My verified and deep Instagram was deactivated for my own self care. As of this blog post, it is back up. I’m ready. I’m finally ready to have some intent in my separation of church and state. I’ve come back to a place where I’m ready to share my art again. I’ve come back to a place where I feel confident enough to let it all breathe on social media, the internet, and hopefully in the hearts of… dare I say… fans.

I have boundless gratitude for my students. Both my online community through Videoschool Online and Photo & Friends, and my in person college students. The sheer amount of messages and interest you’ve lit under my creative engine, I’ll never forget.

This summer, my photography brought smiles and laughs to the guests at the Circle H Guest Ranch, so many that it has inspired several photo books and a potential zine (more on that in the future).

The goal for the immediate future and the plan moving forward; is to have more intent.

More intentional art.

More curation of my own style and expression.

I want my social media to have a strong impact through my photographic style. I want my blog space and Substack to be places for me to write and say things my photographs can’t or won’t. I want my new photo books to take up physical space, bringing all that experience and motion into something I can touch. I want my lectures and workshops to inspire others to find the creativity that’s in locked up inside every human. I want the potential of new YouTube content to carry weight in documenting my own life. I want my new research projects to help future filmmakers and artists. I want to turn everything I touch creatively into something that makes someone pause and feel a pulse. I want it to keep meaning something. I want to keep inspiring those who inspire me.

Of course, it comes in waves. There will always be ups and always be downs, rain, wind, and shine. In this moment, right now, I am feeling inspired to answer that question and not dwell on what can feel like empty chapters, what I’ve experienced, and what Walt Whitman calls:

“…Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?”

And I’m ready to align my answer with his:

“Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

— “O Me! O Life!” by Walt Whitman

I’ll contribute a verse.