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My work as a photographer has centered increasingly on themes of physical,
cultural, and spiritual survival. Since receiving a Fulbright fellowship in
1990, I have traveled at least twice a year to live and work in the Basque region
of southwest France. While photographing landscapes and faces that reflect the
region's ancient beauty and its inhabitants' region spiritual connection to the land, I
have developed a powerful relationship with the indigenous Basques who have
managed to survive, united and culturally distinct, since prehistory.
In my photographs I bear witness to the rituals of daily village life. St. Jean
Pied de Port and its surrounding villages lie in the interior, or heart, of the
Basque country. I arrived there for the first time on a tiny train which wound
through mountains dotted with white-washed farmhouses. Here in the Basque
heartland, many of the old people speak neither French nor Spanish, only Euskara,
the Basque language, and they have earned a reputation for being closed and
distrustful. My first morning in St. Jean Pied de Port, an elderly woman, with a
face that reminded me of my grandmother's invited me to tea. I arrived at her
door several days later, soaked with rain; she gave me slippers and hot tea with
madeleines.
Madame Hatoig's warmth and generosity have been echoed by many others in the
villages in which I have lived. The Basques have welcomed me into their
world shepherds, cafe owners, students, postal workers, and farmers. Blessed
with their trust and acceptance, I photograph the interior‹the heart of their
lives, in their kitchens and barns, with their afternoon glasses of Ricard, their
evening walks and embraces. As the world continues inevitably to open, the
Basques offer values which are urgently needed, values such as a spiritual
connection, community, generosity, respect for tradition, and an acceptance of
aging and death as integral parts of the cycle of life. As an artist, my hope is
to show the beauty and subtleties of this enduring culture.
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