For Naval Gazing Exhibition (2010)
video project and installation created for Navel Gazing: Fresh Squeezed Visions of Florida

Excerpt from the video in the installation below >

All I knew about Florida was that it was popular with both old folks and alligators—and at the time I was not very fond of either.

"Mom, why are we moving to Florida?"

My mother looked tired.

"Because I said so,” she replied.

She was going to make a lot more money at her new job in Florida. Unfortunately it required relocating herself and her out-of-control teenager from the familiar, mountainous region of Boulder, Colorado, to the wild, humid swamps of Gainesville, Florida.

I was the teenager. Kicking and screaming, I moved to Florida. And I lived there for five extremely important years of my life before I moved to California in 2001. Those five years ended up being unimaginably significant to my development, my personality, and my life's trajectory. During that time I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time, I was diagnosed with epilepsy, I started college, I met both amazing and awful people, and I drove a monstrous Ford Econoline van in which I toured around the great state of Florida on many occasions. I had a vast array of experiences that run the spectrum from beautiful to horrible and from instantly forgettable to insanely unbelievable.

My memories of Florida seem to exist as a mythological time capsule, and my project would seek to explore some of the physical locations that once held these experiences for me in order to see what else can be uncovered.

This piece can be seen as an attempt to respond to two questions:

“What is Florida?” and “Where did I come from?”
Florida is composed of much more than the ground underneath our feet. It encapsulates the complicated histories, lives, experiences, and memories of those who have lived here. I intend to draw upon memories in this piece, not only my own, but also on my viewer’s memories and experiences. While audience members view my video fragments (many of which will be of famous locations, landscapes, theme parks, and highways) they will have their own recollections of these places. I would like to include video clips taken just outside of the Brevard Art Museum in the video, so viewers will recognize that location even if they are not familiar with the others.

It has been a number of years since I have revisited Florida, and I consider my self to be in a unique “insider” and “outsider” position. I tend to romanticize Florida. I think of the beaches, the rivers, the strange sinkholes, the beautiful root systems of the Banyan trees, and the intricacies of the hanging Spanish moss. When I lived in Florida, I think that I became immune to its extraordinary features, and I am curious to discover if revisiting Florida will change any of my perceptions.
My artwork is documentary in nature. I am a collector, an archiver, and a very introspective artist. I would probably be considered a perpetual navel gazer myself, but I like to think of the term’s meaning not as solipsistic (as it is sometimes used) but rather as exploratory. It seems necessary to understand one's self and where one came from in order to understand one's place in the world.

The amusing implication of actually "navel gazing" would be to stare at one’s belly button, the strange physical remainder of the pre-birth life experience, and probably ponder the question, “Where did I come from?”

In a sense, this piece is about me, the artist, navel gazing, and wondering about a specific period in my life that helps answers the question, “Where did I come from?” Perhaps the changes Florida has exerted upon me are something I will wear forever, like a belly button, hidden somewhere beneath my clothes.

Florida has undoubtedly left an everlasting impression on me, and I imagine it has done the same for everyone who has set foot in the state. Florida, with it’s complex history, it’s hyper-real theme parks which exist right alongside old-Florida “Weeki Watchee”-style tourist attractions, it’s dazzling beaches and dark swamps where Miccosuckee Indians still live in chickees, even it’s alligators and old folks, is an astonishing place to behold, and I am forever grateful to my mother who took me there and gave me the chance to  experience it.