Artist Debe Arlook is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘edge of an [american] dream’. To see Debe ’s body of work, click on any image.

As a kid with my face glued to the window of cars or trains. I watched the countless blurred moments of new and familiar landscapes rush by, wondering who lived and worked there. Decades and numerous road trips later, the locations I’m drawn to are mostly rural and agricultural towns in America’s interior. Towns built on the discriminative promise of freedom, equality and prosperity through hard work, I wonder if the American Dream was realized.

I have no personal history here but there is an intuitive recognition of the towns and cities I photograph. They fade in and out of focus, like a memory or a dream. I feel a connection to these communities but can’t place its origin. Maybe it’s the novelty of childhood memory or the collective memory from news events, history or stories romanticized in the arts. I’m curious about life in these quiet, rural towns where downtown may be marked by a single stop sign. Lifetimes exist in these places, only I’m passing by and on to the next vignette.

Photographed through the passenger window, faint moments of nostalgia emerge like fragments of dreams and forgotten memories; each reinvented with the passage of time. In many ways, we are all passing through at one time or another…looking out the window with hopes of realizing our own dreams.

All images and text © Debe Arlook

See also:

one, one thousand…

By Debe Arlook

Edge of Humanity Magazine’s

FREE Projects & Other Services

To Promote Works From Artists,

Photographers, Poets & Writers

COMMISSION FREE
CONTRACT FREE
online platform for artists to sell their creations

PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK, SHORT STORIES & MUSIC Recommendations

FREE Platform For Artists NO MIDDLEMAN ART GALLERY

In The Mind Of An Artist

Open Submissions for Writers & Poets

Photo Curator

PRESS RELEASE On Edge of Humanity Magazine

Photography Articles