I had seen this sculpture, "The Thinker," at The Baltimore Museum of Art maybe a handful of times, but I never actually looked at it until one summer day in 2020. Maybe it was the sad serious expression on his his face. Or maybe in that moment I recognized that face, position, and practice. Deep in thought, distressed, not present. Yes, all things I was far to familiar with, especially in 2020. A few days later I was looking at one of my photographs from The Self Portrait Series and thought about The Thinker.

In Untitled I was in the ruins of The Los Angeles Forest. It was some time after the fires. The trees were black and the sand was still wet from the water used to put out the fires. I was sad. Sad for the trees, the land, the plants. I was sad and searching for pieces of myself through these photographs, locations, and plants. 

A hundreds plus years later, some things never change. When I saw The Thinker in 2020 I saw me. When I look at Untitled from 2018 I saw The Thinker. 

What were we thinking about?