For the next several years I
worked, printed and exhibited. Museums were collecting my work and
galleries were calling on the phone, but ultimately I was unhappy
with the compromises they wanted of me. Galleries demanded that I
continue to make the same images, warning me not to change my style
in any way. Curators were taking my images and using them in ways
I never dreamed possible. I felt very strongly the pressure to conform
to other people’s standards in order to survive. It became very apparent
that for me the issue of maintaining my personal integrity was more
important than success—if success meant I had to conform to someone
else’s idea of my work.
So in 1986 I dropped out.
I took all my work out of galleries, stopped having shows, and disappeared
from public view. I continued to photograph while I regrouped. A Point
Lobos series entitled A Passage
of the Heart was finished in 1986, and Fallen
Roses, a series dealing with the sense of isolation I was feeling,
was completed in 1987.
In 1989 I moved to a small
cabin on Garrapata Ridge, just south of Carmel. There, one thousand
feet up a winding, dirt road, views of the ocean, the inland mountains,
and the sky itself trade places as the road twists upwards. I built
a studio under the deck of my cabin and began to work. The first large
body of images was called The Jennifer Desmond Series(1989‑1993). After being exhibited at
the Fresno Art Museum, the works in this series were purchased and
donated to the Fresno Art Museum and the Houston Museum of Art. I
made this work during the three years I spent photographing young
friends I met while teaching at Cabrillo College. They were people
who were questioning everything and beginning to find their own way
in the world. Their alternate lifestyle and positive nature made for
a great body of images.
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