Words can not express how incredibly grateful and honored I am to be recognized in Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 50 for my assemblage series, Remembering Papa. The series focuses on the relationship between the family archive and personal memory.
Thank you to the 200 jurors for all your hard work and for recognizing this project. Close to 1000 photographic series from around the world are submitted to a pre-screen panel who narrows the field to 200 finalists. The finalists then go on to have their worked judged by a variety of photographic professionals who then narrow down the finalists to The Top 50. It's an achievement to make it as a finalist and very humbling to be considered in the Top 50.
I am forever thankful to the creative, brilliant, kind and always giving Dawn Surratt whose assemblage workshop opened up my world and paved the way for this series. Her words of wisdom have always stuck in my head throughout this project, "Think about what you want to say, then let the object speak to you" Thank you to Douglas Ramirez for your constant encouragement and for always being my sounding-board to run any idea by you and for being there to help me articulate my thoughts and finessing the individual stories.
Most of all, I want to thank my family, the Papa's, without them I wouldn't be the person I am today. My heart has always been filled with love for my family. My generation serves as the memory keepers for the Papa family. I am proud to share their stories, their traditions and the values they instilled in me with the younger and future generations of Papa's.
