The Changing Landscape of American Retail is on display through October 10th in the annual Fresh exhibition at Klompching Gallery. The gallery has arranged a zoom panel with owners Debra Klompching and Darren Ching with virtual artist talks with myself and artist Marcus Desieno and you can register through eventbrite here.

Now in its 9th year, the FRESH Annual Exhibition is presented by the Klompching Gallery in New York. Only 5 photographers are selected for this exemplary exhibition, curated and presented to the highest standards by one of the leading contemporary art galleries, specializing in the exhibition and sale of emerging, mid-career and established artists working in the photographic arts.

Beginning in 2015, The Changing Landscape of American Retail is an ongoing documentation of the shift from traditional brick-and-mortar locations where we once socialized and interacted with our community to the stark and generic essential for e-commerce. Like memories, familiar retail entities are fading away. Today, they stand as modern-day ruins and architectural artifacts.

These works are an exercise of looking to the past and peering into the future, serving as a metaphor of how technology is accelerating cultural change in the modern world. I know you can’t fight change, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be sentimental.

Celebrated in the PDN Photo Annual and Photolucida’s Critical Mass, you can learn more by visiting interviews on The Washington Post, NPR, Architectural Digest, Wired, Fast Company, and Business Insider.

For the kickoff of the holiday spending season, I talk The Changing Landscape of American Retail to The Washington Post. Click here to read in full and images bellow from an expanded edit and outtakes for a Business Insider feature.

The Washington Post feature Edited by Karly Domb Sadof and design by Clare Ramirez.
Business Insider feature edited and interview conducted by Katie Canales

As football season goes into full swing, I was spoke with Buzzfeed and The Gaurdian about Autobiography of a Contact Sport. Buzzfeed Interview by Gabriel H. Sanchez
and The Gaurdian interview by Edward Siddons.

Statement:
0: The number of times I regret playing high school football.

1: The number of points Sunnyslope High School lost by to keep them from playing in the division III Arizona High School Championship.

2: The approximate number of high school football players who die every year from concussions.

3: The number of years I started varsity football in Missouri.

68: Varsity jersey number.

81: Junior Varsity jersey number.

100: The percent chance my unborn son will not play the game that I miss; the game that I love; the game that made me.

I grew up in Missouri and I was an art-jock. I felt like I was unique—maybe I was—who knows. I received a handful of scholarships, which I considered, but I opted for pursuing my passion for art and photography. I love being a photographer. I still suffer from the effects of playing the game. Some include coping with depression and general panic disorder (my doctor now thinks these are related to my playing days) chronic back and knee pain, two torn thumbs, two torn hamstrings, two shoulder surgeries and a hip surgery. I would never say the pain outweighs the power. The game gave me an understanding of power and restraint.

Over time, I have become more and more leery of passing on my playing legacy, my family’s football heirloom (my grandfather, father, and both my brothers played.) Living with my own physical and mental ailments combined with our better understanding of CTE, if I were ever to have a son, I now think that my family’s football heirloom ends with me.

As a farewell, I chose to document the Phoenix based Sunny Slope football program. They are the Sunny Slope Vikings. I was a Parkview Viking. Both mascots depicted with the familiar horns flanking our helmets. We share the same school colors and are nearly identical in socio economic complexion. It was a perfect fit and the closest thing to being home without actually going home.

There’s a violent beauty at the heart of the sport. These boys wear a costume of manhood, disguised by their strength, speed, and violence which only lasts so long when their childlike joy and rage comes to the surface.

In New Orleans they have big bands at funerals and in football marching bands announce the euphoria and pain. I imagine football like that: an end, a beginning, and a celebration all wrapped up in the light of my nostalgia. Don’t consider this a eulogy. This is a celebration.

Typography treatment by Patricia Pruiss of Sunday Afternoon and interview excerpts from Ian Reed, the Arizona defensive player of the year.

Last week I started to see Christmas lights find their way back on to residential homes as a sign of cheer and hope amid the pandemic. I liked the idea of “Merry quarantine.” Christmas In America: Happy Birthday, Jesus at the core is about the annual escape and a unifying event by way of nostalgic ritual. A reoccurring comfort where many find joy in the exercise of looking forward coupled with memories of holidays past. Similar to now- we stay patient and too search for solace in looking both to the future and past.

With the downtime I realized that I hadn’t shared any of this past season’s features. 2019 was the final chapter as I focused on New York City and surrounding areas.

Selected features are as follows:
1-5: Chaeg Issue 52. South Korea
6-7: Wings Magazine. Germany
8: Geo Magazine. Germany
9: Amtrak the National. USA

The Changing Landscape of American Retail is currently on exhibit as part of the traveling exhibition The Fence by Photoville at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Winchester Cultural District until September 27, 2020. The outdoor installation is a safe exhibition experience during covid.

2019 & 2020 Fence exhibitions:
Brooklyn Bridge Park. Brooklyn, NY.
Santa Fe Railyard Park. Santa Fe, NM.
LoDo District. Denver, CO.
Atlanta Beltline. Atlanta, GA.
City Hall Plaza. Durham, NC.
Waterfront Seattle. Seattle, WA.
SoWa Southie Plaza. Boston, MA.
Fourth Ward. Houston, TX.
New Orleans, LA.
The Metro (North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota)