Anthony Procopio Ross

Artist Statement: A friend and I are compiling work for a photo project, and many of my concerns about photography right now—especially what seems to be escaping attention—are emerging from that collaboration. In arranging the photos, we arrived at a theme after spending time with an uncertainty that makes themes visible. Forgetfulness.

When we first agreed on it, I worried it would be defeatist to arrange a sequence with what, in perpetuum, escapes full comprehension. As writers, we live with a thousand unknowns for every known thing we try to draw from the page, and even then, those knowns quickly sublimate into more uncertainty after time away and new life experiences complicate preceding creative and emotional labor. Forgetfulness, to me, without any virtuous reaching for meaning and memory—but still making space for epiphany—seems like a worthwhile way to honor one another’s work while acknowledging the human limits of our ability to hold only so much.

Much of my poetry work, and soul work, for that matter, deals with strangers. Gosh, I make it sound like I’m dealing cards or freighting souls to the underworld. One trip out to eastern Kansas to see my Uncle Ron and rest before heading to an artist residency eventually led me to a sundial barely visible on a hilltop a few miles from his property. Elsewhere, we drank pineapple-flavored beer, dubbed Life Coach, in a bar on the outskirts. I wish I’d taken a photo of that, too. Must have forgotten. Sometimes, I love that I forget.