I am well overdue for an update, and I wish I could say a lot has happened at The Kitchen proper. I can easily say a lot has happened, but it feels along the lines of a tornado. In the way that tornadoes can leave a vase of flowers delicately intact on a table, while the house around that vase has transformed to rubble. In this case, the tornado has been three months of opportunity and misfortune, and the vase is the construction of the gang darkroom, with hundreds of pounds of drywall untouched, waiting to be hung.

I am grateful to be involved with the Experimental Photo Festival and with the Ágora School of Experimentation. So I knew starting in late June that my energy would be shifting from Kitchen workshops into recording classes and preparing for the annual event in Barcelona. I didn’t know that upon my return home in early August that I’d be dealing with a first-hand reminder of our inevitable mortality. After spending significant time visiting a local  hospital, and adjusting to new home routines, I also realized that our help building the gang darkroom would not be returning. For numerous reasons, all the construction progress has once again been paused.

I was recently discussing with a friend how it seems that all my goals are taking so much longer to achieve than they did in years past. She pointed out that maybe as we age, the goals grow in scope and depth, and therefore they just need more time than they previously have needed. I never would have imagined in 2023 that I would still be trying to build this darkroom and classroom almost three years later.

But I am by no means discouraged, and have been fortunate to be presented with all kinds of great opportunities in these really challenging times. Among my classes, I managed to pull off a solo show of new work at 411 Gallery, on view through October 16 (with an artist talk on October 1). But the darkroom is just the beginning of my goals on this land, and I am eager to make some progress happen again on the ground here.

My apologies to those who have reached out and I’ve not been able to contact in a timely manner. I want to work with you and I’m seeing a silver lining with all my current obligations. Also, the high temperatures dropped into the 60s a few days ago which always gives me an energy boost. And I think I’ll need that energy to resume the search for another contractor / builder for the darkroom, given how difficult that search initially was. Apparently between our location and the size of our project, most contractors are not interested. If you are in south central Indiana and know of anyone who can build out a 30×40’ structure with all the supplies basically in place already, please give me a shout. I can do my part to help but that doesn’t include scaffolding and drywall lifts.