Liz Bretz

I was born in, what used to be, rural Pennsylvania and taken home to a barely furnished, newly purchased 300 year old farmhouse. The house and the usual hauntings that accompanied three hundred years would become a large part my psyche. The weathered floorboards, dark corners, narrow hallways, creepy critters all became characters in a familiar soundscape of rattling pipes, winter scratched window panes, creaking doors, and rhythmic silence. Outside of the house, I spent most of my childhood days perched in trees, embarked on long-winded pilgrimages to the back woods, furnishing my ‘collections of things found on the ground,’ chasing sheep and geese – then, consequently, running away from sheep and geese... I remember when I first discovered Diane Arbus. It was during a very difficult and introspective time in my life, when those dark corners and narrow hallways became debilitating instead of an appreciated quirk. I remember stopping in my tracks and connecting with her imagery in a way that the world made a just little bit more sense. Her imagery was the catalyst for this photo-illustrative series of portraits, “Into the Woods.” Although I do investigate and study other themes, this particular surrealist series focuses on the semi-autobiographical emotional growth of a young girl, her comfort with pain, desire for the unordinary, and the increasing awareness of her looking glass-self, all with a splash of optimism.