The importance of this body of work is in its representation as a radical shift from the style and intent of all the work that preceded it. Work predating this project was based on economics rather than aesthetics or emotive concerns. Because creative work during this time was random and sporadic, the ideas motivating Bricks were a significant departure from the norm and a significant challenge to me as a creative person.

Further limitations were that I was restricted from travel or extended periods away from home due to a family member's illness. The subject matter was chosen for several reasons not only for its difficulty, but also for its abundance and variety with respect to my geographic limitations. All photography was done between February and April 2001 and all but one image was captures on the grounds of the University of Virginia. For the most part they were recorded immediately before or after work, or during lunch breaks.

I constructed a metaphor to kickstart the project, thinking of each brick not as an object of industry, but as a parcel of time, for instance a day, week, month or year. Within this framework structures such as walls and buildings became products of an investment of time, for instance as the product of a life's work. More so, since many of the images depict portions of more complete edifices, defects or peculiarities in the brickwork took the meaning of significant periods of time, for instance a good or bad day, a rough period in one's life, etc.

Midway through the project my concern with the metaphor lessened and I began to find compositions that I appreciated on purely aesthetic terms.

For the technically minded, these images were photographed with a Hasselblad ELX fitted with either a 60mm, 80 mm, or 150 mm lens using Kodak TMX 100, or TMY 400 black and white film. Processing was in D-76.