I recently attended a workshop that asked participants to explore “What is the place of art in our lives today?”. We spent time together photographing, discussing and then creating our own stories of how art impacts lives through composite photographs.. For this image I turned the lens on myself, telling my story.

I have always enjoyed being a photographer illuminating the world with my humble lens, but when the world collapsed around me, I got lost and afraid and laid my camera down. Ironically, it was my photography that pulled me back up and helped me learn to live again and see the world in all its glistening light. As artists, we sometimes want to hide from the most powerful healing agent there is: our own ability to create and thrive and be.

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe my work would appear in a museum, but dreams do come true.

The "Making Art from the Museum to the Streets" workshop offered by the Allentown Museum (Allentown, PA) asked participants to explore “What is the place of art in our lives today?”. For three days we wandered and photographed Allentown and shared our own stories. We were then asked to create a story, using a composite photograph, of how art impacts our lives today. I called my piece, "Art Healing the Community", for while wandering the city, I was continuously struck by the shadow cast on Allentown and in particular the museum by the county jail. I wanted this piece to represent how art could heal those in jail, as well as the community where the crimes occurred.