Inspired by Pati Hill
I was unfamiliar with the work of Pati Hill when she was assigned as my inspiration for November. At first glance, her work didn’t immediately move me visually. But the longer I sat with it, the more it began to shift something deeper—my perspective.
Hill worked as a photocopy artist in the 1970s, at a time when photocopiers were becoming a standard fixture in offices. What stood out wasn’t just the medium she chose, but how she used it: turning everyday objects into something worth pausing over. Her process wasn’t about spectacle—it was about attention.
That idea stayed with me.
I began to wonder what today’s equivalent of the photocopier might be. What tool do we use so casually, so unconsciously, that we forget its creative potential? My answer was immediate: the cell phone camera.
Scrolling through my phone, I noticed a pattern. So many of my images weren’t “photographs” in the traditional sense—they were reminders. A grocery list. A neighborhood fence we were referencing while designing our own. A fleeting moment from a concert. These images were never meant to be seen again, only to serve as temporary memory aids—breadcrumbs of daily life.
But what happens when those breadcrumbs are gathered?
I selected a group of these images, stripped them of color, and printed them on standard copy paper. In doing so, I intentionally echoed the accessibility and mundanity of Hill’s process. No precious materials, no elaborate presentation—just paper, ink, and time.
As a series, something shifted.
Individually, these images felt disposable. Together, they carried weight. They began to form a visual rhythm, a quiet narrative of how I move through the world—what I notice, what I hold onto, what I almost forget.
What once existed as fragments of memory became a record of presence.
This project reminded me that meaning doesn’t always come from what we photograph, but from how we choose to see it—and how we choose to revisit it. Like Pati Hill, I found that the ordinary, when reframed, can become something else entirely: not just documentation, but reflection.
