Jill Corona

Creature of the West

There is a creature that dwells in the warm desert of the West, one with searing red eyes that blink slow & steadily like a long hot drag of a cigarette burning in the night. It’s tentacle-like arms are generations of families that have lived and died in a rusty basin where copper runs deep, Saguaro is plentiful and the summers are blistering hot.

 

 

It is a pulsing, living (and dying) congregation of community and people, with both despair and hope strengthening it’s strong-reaching roots. Within it’s clutches are stories of life and survival, as well as death, decay and environmental deterioration.

The images and work in Creature of the West are an attempt to capture and preserve what’s left of a dying American smelter town.

 

 

Bio

I am a photographer currently living near Phoenix, but was born & raised in the small mining community of San Pedro near Hayden, Arizona. I have been documenting the crumbling presence of my hometown as it struggles with environmental issues (high cancer rates and toxic clean-ups) as well as social, community and economic obstacles (drugs, crime, destruction). I travel from Phoenix to San Pedro as often as possible endeavoring to record (with photographs) the deterioration of the people, environment and community spirit of this beloved, mostly Hispanic barrio as it faces a questionable future.

 This work was shortlisted for the Emerging Photographer Fund 2014.

7 thoughts on “Jill Corona – Creature of the West”

  5. mw

    I like this work. Though I get the feeling that the photographer has unresolved issues with the small town and that carries over into the essay. Like John Gladdy, I’m curious about the choice of low contrast. My guess would be it’s a way of dealing with, or depicting, the harsh light in that part of Arizona. Oliver Stone’s film “U Turn” was shot near there, which if you’ve seen it, gives a clue to what the area looks like. The statement suggests a familiarity with the writing of Charles Bowden, who nails it with words like no other and has worked with photographers to better communicate the meaning of his words. Still, I’ve yet to see a photographer who sees all that much of what I saw when I used to kick around those places. This work, I think, goes further in that direction than any other. I hope Ms. Corona stays with it.

  6. Frostfrog

    I like the images – strong, well composed, provocative, all of a part of the country with which I am familiar, though not with this community. Yet, I found it hard to study the images or look at them for very long. I wanted to see black. Maybe I am old fashioned in this regard and so fail to see the brilliance and powerful artistic statement made by substituting muddy gray for black, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes in that muddy gray for any length of time. It was too aggravating… Maybe that’s what you wanted – to present me with a provocative image and then to aggravate me so greatly as to cause me to quickly leave it behind, move on an get aggravated all over again so that I might understand how aggravating you, personally, find this place of your’s to be.

    In that case, you succeeded.

  7. Yucel

    Number 4 on the back of slide 21… and then the slide show moves on to slide 22…

    great shots what you’ve found and photographed in our back yard.

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