Bøker av Robbie Kaye

Years ago, during a cross country driving trip to a writing fellowship Robbie Kaye drove through Bryce Canyon, leaving it, in awe. She left the canyon and passed a large white cross standing on the hill of the median. In big black letters it read, "Saturday Warrior." Mesmerized by the sight of that cross, she continued on the highway for several miles and then a feeling came over her. The intrigue was too strong, and she had to turn around and go back for this hauntingly beautiful marking. So many questions ran through her mind: who did this cross belong to? Why was it there? What is their story? As a songwriter Robbie had written many songs while driving in her car and whenever she had driven long distances, she kept a notebook close by for journaling. After seeing these crosses, Las Cruces, the words flowed as she created fictionalized voices from the crosses. Poem and poem. By the time she reached her first destiny in New York she had completed twenty-one poems of fictionalized voices coming from beneath the earth. Voices of death. Big death. She contemplated the small deaths she had experienced in her own life by that time. That trip was seventeen years ago. In her travels since that first road trip, she continues to notice crosses and photograph them. Each time she sees another cross - in Hawaii, California, Arizona, any roadside - she pauses. Takes note. Acknowledges. Robbie sees it as an occasion to ask herself: "where am I in my life?" This sign of death calls to mind little deaths. The unexpected changes: the fragility of life. Robbie Kaye takes a photograph in reverence.

Every time I took a photograph of these trees it allowed me to study them, to focus in closer and my connection grew deeper. Separated by barbed wire like a Rembrandt cordoned off from the public, I often refer to this place as the 'tree museum.' This particular 'tree museum' is different than the ones I knew on the east coast. I used to take drives from NYC up to Nyack or Westchester to see the Autumn trees in all their regalia.You are probably familiar with the foliage of the elm and maple trees as they morph into winter with their striking colors of bright orange, yellow and even red. The oak trees in this west coast 'museum' are not so obvious in their beauty. Their leaves hardly change color if at all, their attractiveness subtler, more subdued. I'll admit it took time for me to see the intensity of the beauty, but that is what makes them so special. It's not always easy or obvious but it's always stunning and alluring to me. Now, I hike in the midst of these oak giants in awe of each one, their psychedelic branches dancing in all directions, recognizable and I am delighted in their presence. As I curated the images for this book, it felt like I was going through a family album; reminding me of good times, seasons, holidays and even tragedies. I have experienced solitude, magic and the great majesty of this land. I would like to live as the trees do…in confidence, faith and fearlessness. They possess a constancy that I admire and can only hope to emulate in my time here.

In 2011, when iPhone selfies were on the rise, Robbie Kaye stood in front of her bedroom mirror, poised to take a photograph of herself. She noticed a crack on the bottom left corner. "I can't take this picture," was her first reaction. The mirror wasn't perfect. She took the photograph anyway. She took it because it brought to mind the imperfections of life, of relationships and the learning to love her deeper self - cracks were a way in... As the days and weeks went by that little crack in the bottom corner grew. It stretched half way up the mirror. Time passed and another crack appeared. Soon there were lines across both mirrored doors, reminding her of the lines on her face. The mirror, with all its cracks and veins, held up despite the constancy of use. Robbie Kaye observed how it mirrored her self-acceptance, or lack therof. In her self-portraits, and photographs of her family, she could see how the distortion worked with these images. She became more brave, more willing to see and love the way the mirror's continuing cracks allowed more freedom in herself. To see her own face and naked body across the cracked mirror ~ stood as a metaphor for her growing self-acceptance during the course of over two years of this project. She continued taking 'selfies,' sometimes of her dogs, family members and friends. Robbie Kaye took them in the summer, the winter, after a shower, in the middle of the day, when getting ready to go out, to go away until finally, she took the very last photograph on the day she moved. She left that mirror behind. She left behind the shimmery surface whose cracks had invited her into herself. Her life unfolded in front of that cracked mirror. She left the object behind, but the journey had only begun.