elsewhere
Sometimes I leave the desert. Not often, but it happens.
And when it does, I end up making things that don’t fit neatly into Joshua Trees, mountain horizons, or ancient‑artifact energy. These are the pieces from road trips, memory trips, emotional detours, and the occasional “how did I end up in the Midwest again” moment.
They’re too green, too nostalgic, too humid, too polite — basically everything the desert refuses to be.
So I gathered them here, in one tidy little category called Elsewhere, because “Not the Desert” felt a bit on the nose.
Bonsai Ballet is a five‑part study in mood and light — one tree, five atmospheres. Blush, Chamomile, Jade, Twilight, and Nocturne each catch the same bonsai mid‑gesture as the world around it shifts. It’s a tiny dancer moving through color, weather, and time, a quiet little performance staged far from the desert’s heat.
Photographed at the Japanese Garden in St. Paul’s Como Park, these trees were not specimens but performers—poised, expressive, and quietly defiant.
For the full libretto and origin story, see “Bonsai” in the Conversations section.
Midwest Memory is a six‑part meditation on the way time reshapes what we think we remember. Each piece explores the shifting relationship between memory, space, and color — how landscapes blur, flatten, and reassemble themselves long after we’ve left them. This series isn’t about the Midwest as it was, but the Midwest as it continues to echo, evolve, and insist on being re‑seen.
