Let’s pretend it hasn’t been 2.5 years since I published a blog post. Deal? Awesome. It struck me that I miss talking to the great unknown of the Internet. I felt I needed to tell you a couple things about the last few years. In December 2019 I became foster mother to a 2-year old boy. We call him Jude, for privacy. I said goodbye to him in August 2020. In October 2020 we took in a newborn boy, Ryke,…
I started my photography journey on Flickr, back when it was the behemoth of the photo-centered social media scene. I started posting odd, creepy, uncomfortable self-portraits and that triggered some conversation. And then, without understanding, I started to see comments on my pictures that said “congrats on explore!” When I first saw this I had no idea what it meant. “Explore what?” I thought. I quickly came to learn that somehow, for whatever reason (and these things always seem to…
I’ve been to Kolkata, India on 8 separate trips since 2013. It has become a second home for me. Even the parts that make me uncomfortable – the constant cacophony of blackbirds, or the scents that I’m so unused to – have become a beacon of home. The blackbirds especially. I used to stay awake listening to their sounds; now they lull me to sleep and awake again in the morning. I shot these images in Kolkata. I remember the…
I’ve always loved that my name is Brooke. I’ve identified with streams and creeks my whole life, felt such an affinity with little moving rivers. I love creating in water. I love the shock of it, the abnormality of it. I love the organic movement, the softness of it, the tremendous power of it. Create in or with water for this challenge. I’m especially eager to see what this brings. I’ll pull some of the art that I see this…
Let us open with one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver, “A Dream of Trees”: There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,A quiet house, some green and modest acresA little way from every troubling town,A little way from factories schools, laments.I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,With only streams and birds for company.To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.And then it came to me, that so was death,A little way…