Artist Statement

Bigfoot is as American as baseball, hot-dogs and apple-pie. Sightings of Bigfoot in North America are as old as recorded history and have happened all the way from each sea to shining sea.

When I was a young child I would bug my mother to take me to the library so that I could check out books on Bigfoot. I checked them all out, repeatedly, and pored over the stories with a rabid curiosity. I had a recurring nightmare where Bigfoot would come down out of the foothills, make it's way to my house, reach in with his long furry arm through the basement window and try to grab me. I would wake up at this point scared to death. Fear did not quench my thirst for information.

In the canon of Bigfoot photography there are many examples of what enthusiasts affectionately call 'Blobsquatch'. This refers to the overall nature and quality of these images of alleged sightings of the large furry creature. Furry, blurry blobs, magnified many times past the point of recognition with cameras never designed to provide adequate detail at high resolution. 'Blobsquatch' is a play on one of the creature's additional names – Sasquatch.

Eyewitnesses have provided researchers and enthusiasts with detailed photographs of footprints, hair samples and tree damage. We have a database rich in the written record and accounts of individuals and groups that have seen Bigfoot with their own eyes. We also have a handful of 'Blobsquatch' images, some proven to be hoaxes, others don't provide a definitive answer to what is being shown.

What is missing in the photographic vernacular of these sightings is an overall feel or sense of place. Missing are the overall shots documenting the environment that this creature inhabits.

This project will concentrate on making images that show the environment and overall landscape these first-hand accounts originate from. I want to put the 'Blobsquatch' into perspective. I want to get a feeling of the places the creature lives. Tools will include large-format and ultra-large-format film cameras measuring up to 8x20 inches. Photographs will be presented as black and white analog prints of various types.

This summer I intend to travel to several locations where there have been eyewitness accounts of a Bigfoot sighting. There are many reports of what people have thought to be sounds, noises or other evidence, feelings, intuitions and hair standing on the back of their neck. Those are wide and varied, and I have to start small. Therefore I will narrow down my locations of choice to those areas where the creature has been physically seen.

Through my entire life I have traveled thousands of miles in very remote mountainous terrain. I have always kept an eye out for Bigfoot. It is not my intent to prove or disprove the existence of such a creature. It is my intent to share the locations where it has allegedly been seen.

A lack of physical evidence does not mean a lack of interest for me.

May, 2009