Faculty feature – Kirby Pilcher

Sparked As He Grazed It
Kirby Pilcher & Luke Strosnider
The Wayne and Geraldine Kuhn Fine Arts Gallery
Ohio State University- Marion Campus
October 27- December 5, 2014

I try to make a substantial photography trip every summer. I aim for at least 3 weeks and often with a predetermined destination and project in mind. The plan for the June/July 2013 trip that I planned wasn’t much different. I had a new project I was forming in my head and a few destinations that might fit the concept I was working towards. The difference is that for this trip I had invited other image-makers and adventurers to accompany me. The first leg was spent crisscrossing Minnesota with one of my oldest friends.  The second leg was spent with Chicago photographer Luke Strosnider during an ambitious journey from Denver to a Navajo reservation in Arizona to Roswell New Mexico. From there we were on to Memphis and Cincinnati.

In between making images specifically for the project, Luke and I were photographing constantly, stopping frequently to photograph something one of us thought interesting, carelessly making images out of the car window, and pursuing places that had significance. I have long been skeptical of the possibilities of the truth in photography, believing that the photographer cannot extract his or her ideas and vision from the images they make of a place. After looking at the images we made during this trip, mostly at the exact same locations my beliefs were affirmed. Rarely did we make the same images of a subject, even though we have similar interests and senses of humor. This kinship did help to make the photographs work together however. We chose to present the work as a mashed up and overlapped showing places and echoing the rhythm of the trip itself. The trip was much more interesting and inspiring than the images can ever convey.