Bringing a first book to fruition requires a great deal of support and encouragement, and I am filled with incalculable gratitude toward all the wonderful people who have helped make this possible. I am deeply grateful to Brian Doyle for his words – for seeing what I am trying to express in my own medium, and for giving it a complementary form in his. Further, I would like to thank him for writing the bewitching novel Mink River, which I picked up on San Juan Island in the early stages of shooting Sylvania and which became an unexpected muse in my search for the magical undercurrents of reality. For insight and guidance along the way, I am particularly indebted to Elisabeth Biondi, Elinor Carruci, Marvin Heiferman, Andrew Moore, Gus Powell, Charles Traub, Kiki Bauer, Bonnie Yochelson, and my peers at the School of Visual Arts. Thank you for your candid critique and inspiration. For supporting the creation of this body of work and its transformation into a book, I am infinitely thankful to the following individuals and institutions:
Humble Arts Foundation and LTI/ Lightside, the School of Visual Arts and the SVA Alumni Society, Uprise Art, American Photographic Artists, Douglas Drysdale, Mary Drysdale, Martha Peters, Howard Chua-Eon, Rob Lancefield, Hanna and Jacob Kaufman, Giorgio Furioso, David Carmen, Aidan Joseph, Dov Harel, Torre Johnson, Maxwell Mackenzie and Rebecca Cross, Suzanne Resnick, Peter J. Cohen, John Keon, Amy McIntosh and Jeffrey Toobin, Mary Schmidt, Kaye and Bob Wertz, Michael Dabney, Jim McCarthy, Etan Fraiman, and all the many, many others who pitched in. For your technical savvy, thank you Blake Ogden. For your persistent love and patience, thank you to my exceptional friends and family. I am particularly grateful to Granddad, Aunt Mary, Leeor, Alia, Corina, Hayley, my annisa family, and of course my wonderful parents – who have unflaggingly encouraged my every whim, and who inadvertently inspired this arboreal adventure. And finally, to Michael, Taj, and Ursula of Daylight, without whom this book would still be a mere dream – I am forever indebted and eternally grateful for your belief in Sylvania and for bringing it to life so beautifully.
