Master-Planned

Master-Planned is a fine art photography series exploring the powerful allure created by the builders of today's lavish residential communities. With their Stepford creations, builders play on our tendency to value the grandiose over the genuine by creating the illusion of prestige and instant community in a "custom-built" home.

Personally, I am attracted to the promise of a beautiful brand-new home in a family-oriented neighborhood with great parks, pools, and schools for my daughter. But in this series, I juxtapose this manufactured contemporary American dream with the realities of years of construction activity, a house that is just like everyone else's, a grinding commute, and the harsh truth that many of today's short sales and foreclosures are yesterday's model homes.

The visual style of the series is voyeuristic, intense, and saccharine, echoing the yearning, exploitation, and fantasy swirling around these developments for me. My dreams might tell me that my husband, daughter, and I will find the perfect life in the perfect home in the perfect neighborhood, but the truth is that right around the corner sits a family just like us whose dreams are now nightmares in a house that's upside-down.