"Walden: Chords" is a series of photographic diptychs that bring into conversation images taken at Walden Pond (Concord, MA) and images taken at the Harvard University Art Museums. Each work probes the connections between the natural world, the art historical world, and human relationships. Both Walden Pond and the Harvard Art Museums are types of curated and constructed refuges that also are exploited for human consumption. The series was inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s appreciation for the spiritual and artistic qualities of the natural world. In Walden, Thoreau wrote of Walden Pond:

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And gradually from week to week the character of each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery substituted some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious colouring, for the old upon the walls.

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Just as Thoreau sought harmonies between humans and nature through his residency at Walden Pond, so too have I sought to locate and bring together the harmonies between natural elements of Walden Pond and the human constructions found in museums. As such, my project is the product of my own play and immersion in two important personal refuges: nature and the art museum. Both curated locations have nourished and protected me amid the tumult of urban life, family illness, and having to move away from cherished natural spaces. My project seeks to continue the conversation that Thoreau began over 175 years ago in the woods of Massachusetts and the campus of Harvard University. This project presents harmonies, or two-image “chords,” formed with connections among art, nature, and people. Each chord should resonate with a symmetry and a profusion of possible meanings and emotions for each individual viewer.