Mill-Run
-being in the state in which a product leaves a mill; unsorted and uninspected.

My partner gifted me a Polaroid camera a couple of holidays ago. Although I loved the gift I was super precious about it and rarely used it. I make landscape stop-motion films I am used to taking hundreds of photos in a day, so the idea of buying film came with this pressure reminiscent of a pre-digital time. Thinking that a family member’s wedding was the perfect excuse to actually use my camera, I brought it with me to Savannah… and promptly forgot about it. It sat in a hot car in a hot city for a couple of days. Whatever malfunctioned in that heat produces these pattern light leaks on the right side of each photo I take. This glitch changed my entire relationship with this camera.

During my Southern Studies Fellowship, my camera became the center of my practice on days I needed to leave my studio and my overthinking. I created drives and destinations to make these images. While creating my Work of Remembering Audio Tours I brought my camera to each mill site featured in the tours and to mills whose history informed my project.

Below is a collection of 43 Polaroids created during my time in Spartanburg. The title describes the literal travel between the sites and the conceptual connection between mill production and art production.