Charlee made the photographs in a large abandoned industrial site that sits next to railroad tracks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the summer, fall, and winter of 2012 – 2013, and in June 2014 Jim wrote poems in response. Charlee also made the artist book, Returning to Earth, by taking Jim’s poem and arranging image with text to create an intimate interplay throughout the book. The book is on display as part of this exhibit.

In this work every photograph contains a shard of something left by someone. We all return to earth—that’s part of the deal. But we leave traces behind—also, part of the deal—traces that are then swallowed up by the carrying on of the world, despite our futile attempts at creating permanence. Also, part of the deal.  Bird dung, grasses, weeds, and graffiti triumph over the stone, cement, and gravel where people worked and maybe lived.

The traces are clues to lived lives, and maybe we are the detectives, or the archeologists of the heart, trying to decipher these incomplete stories, or maybe we are simply telling our own stories through what we observe and how we observe it. We offer up these shards.