Although you wouldn’t know it from updates here at Jordan’s Journey, 2013 has been one of the busiest years of my life! Don’t worry though–it’s all in a good way. And luckily for all you Jordan’s Journey fans, recently I uncovered an almost-finished Jordan’s Journey video that I shot back in May 2012. Due to a number of reasons I was never able to polish it off and share it with you. I had almost even forgotten it existed. But when I re-discovered the work-in-progress I felt compelled to finally finish it up. It’s a bit different from most Jordan’s Journey videos and because of those differences it was a harder video to shoot and is a bit rough in spots. But still I’m glad to have made it.
My cousin and friend (we were friends way back before I ever even knew we were cousins) Christa McWilliams joined me to help document some history about the McWilliams Cemetery in West Armuchee. I couldn’t have done this video without her. It’s our attempt to tell the story about this important cemetery which is also, of course, a story about our families.
While I’m at it let me bring you up to date on some of my other projects that have kept me busy this year…
In my role as Creative Director of New Lit Salon Press we just recently published our first anthology, titled Southern Gothic: New Tales of the South. If you enjoy short stories and visual art about the south, be sure to check it out. I designed and art directed the book and you can see me in this video about the collection.
I’ve also been hard at work on an even more exciting project. In March 2014 I will mount my debut solo museum exhibition. The show is called INTERSECTION and is a followup to the Jordan’s Journey project. There’s a lot of overlap between the two but while Jordan’s Journey takes an explicitly genealogical and documentary approach to my art, INTERSECTION explores the more poetic side of my roots. The photo at the top of this page (shot the same day I shot the McWilliams Cemetery video) is included in the show. In addition to the exhibition, which will be at Massillon Museum in Massillon, Ohio, I will publish an exhibition catalog collecting the photography as well as some writing. If you’ve enjoyed Jordan’s Journey, you will want to get a copy of this new book. You can reserve your copy today by supporting my Kickstarter campaign. Also available through this Kickstarter is a special edition of my “We Are One People” article (which first appeared in Georgia Backroads) in the form of a boxed artist’s multiple as well as signed copies of the Jordan’s Journey book.
Jordan’s Journey was a labor of love that I never made a penny from (and never intended to–that’s not what it was about). Yet I racked up many expenses for producing the book, the blog, the videos, the lectures in Chattooga and Walker County, and the exhibition in Summerville. If you enjoyed any part of the project, I hope you will consider supporting my Kickstarter campaign as I take my work to the next level. No donation is too small and every bit helps.
As always, thank you for following my work. You can subscribe to this blog via RSS or email. You can also sign up for the bd-studios.com mailing list for occasional updates on my other projects.