projects

The Little Chapel of Esoteric Cosmetology, 2005-2008. Befriending and photographing the women who work the streets of downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. Became a local bartender to find the people I felt would be sage and wise to guide me along my path. I figured they must really know something: about men, about surviving, about life. This is a lot like holding a strong conviction about fortune cookie accuracy.











Honey, I'm home, 2005-2007. I visited more than 530 model home communities, totaling more than 2,500 houses built to represent and sell the idea of 'home.' Images and video. I began replacing framed stock family photos with my photographs of prostitutes. Then I dressed Ruby as a soccer mom, and had her pose in the homes, bringing these projects together.















Home Fantasy, 1995-2002. My first body of work was an exploration of what it meant to be home.  I grew up on a small family farm in rural (small town) Nebraska, so glimpsing the lives of my father, step mother and two siblings in new money-suburbia while I was attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln became a fascination and a curiosity. This earliest work still plays a role in the work I continue to make. The photographs made in model homes (where cameras hang in every room to document or terrify the vandals) reflect that same particular feeling of being watched, and the fear of being seen in some sense. The home in Lincoln had videocameras in every room of the house as well, which reflected more for me the controlling nature of the parent who installed them as opposed to the 'safety' and 'security' they promised.













The Wedding Party, 2007. The challenge: to meet a cowboy on myspace who would agree to travel to Las Vegas from Texas and fake marry me in a cowboy-themed wedding at the cowboy-themed Bunkhouse Saloon in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. Entire project put together in 4 days, from the day I met a complete stranger (Hale, right) online and a co-worker (Josh, left) got ordained online. Diana and Pandora both attended, though Diana had to leave to "give a blowy in the parking lot." I later moved to Texas for six months to be with Hale.













Postcards to Myself, 2004-2006.  Creating postcards written and mailed to myself giving myself personal tips on how to live a better life, extremely impersonally. The project started as a farce about the pathetic nature of images and design used on tourist postcards from Las Vegas. A single person dominates the entire Las Vegas postcard market, and has for years. When I began creating farce-style postcards for trendier tourists, the Hard Rock Hotel began selling my cards in the hotel.











Never Was Good at Saying Goodbye, 2004-2008. Images of flipping off every building about to be destroyed or moved in the constantly moving and changing landscape of Las Vegas.