Cloverleaf

In the fall of 2013 I started a search to form a connection between the snapshots and stories I had seen and heard of my ancestors growing up to the place where they actually lived; the small family farm in Oskaloosa, Iowa named Cloverleaf. Hearing stories of my grandfather’s farm, and the people who lived on this land was a constant aspect of my childhood experience. These early experiences left me with a deep longing to know these people and further define their place in my personal history. This work stems from my desire to connect a personal history to a site that is simultaneously empty yet filled with the agricultural scars of human presence. With this book, I have incorporated the farm’s historic record, sourced from family albums, and set alongside my own contemporary images of the landscape. This multi-generational imagery highlights the dislocation between past and present and visualizes an elusive and sometimes intangible history with which I am searching to form a connection.