People Of The West: Gesture Of Kinship

From 1978-1988, I lived and worked on the Utah strip of the Navajo Reservation.  Employed first as the kindergarten teacher's aide on the heels of a one-week Children's Photographic Workshop I conducted there I soon became a full-time Artist-in-Education under the auspices of the Utah Arts Council.  It was my practice to take used cameras and visit children at home where we\'d make pictures while bringing in the sheep and other chores.  Later I taught them to make B&W prints in my trailer darkroom.  A Gesture of Kinship is a creative documentary project whereby I've returned to the reservation, made new photographs of my former students (now adults with family) and conducted extended recorded interviews with them on the nature of change in culture, community and themselves.  This work has toured the United States under the auspices of the Utah Museum of Natural History.  Email me for information.  Shown here are the 20 composite images that tour and a selection of the single photos made by myself and the children.