"I am a photographer residing in Springfield, Missouri. Since 1994, I have been pursuing an ongoing project documenting the rural landscape and culture of the Mississippi Delta and surrounding regions. Through my long-term commitment to photographing in Mississippi, I have produced two series of work entitled Take Time to Appreciate and Spiritual Advisor to the World. Both bodies of work are motivated by a personal need to confront questions regarding race, class, prejudice, and spirituality in the United States. While documenting my personal relationship with the Mississippi landscape and its inhabitants, my photographs ultimately function as an exploration of a culture that is rapidly and irrevocably disappearing. In Take Time to Appreciate, I combine simple and direct portraits with images of landscape and architecture to evoke the spirit and quality of daily life in the Delta. My images celebrate spiritual awareness, simplicity of lifestyle, and an intimate connection with one’s environment. The title for this series comes from a hand-painted sign by folk-artist, Mrs. L.V. Hull, and speaks of my primary objective as a photographer. My second series of photographs deals exclusively with Reverend H.D. Dennis, a self-proclaimed preacher, and his transformation of his wife’s grocery store into his own, one-of-a-kind, non-denominational church. This body of work serves as a meditation on creativity, the process of growing older, and the rigors, torments, and joys of the life of an ascetic. In his list of the ten most significant architectural sites in the South, noted American architect and MacArthur fellow, Samuel Mockbee, describes Margaret’s Grocery: “Built by Reverend H.D. Dennis, its crude materials and methods of construction place it in an ethereal state of being and perpetual sense of beauty”. Bruce West 2007-02