My Story:

Aaron James Taylor graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020

with a Bachelors of Science in Product Design with a focus in

Jewelry and Metalsmithing and a minor in Art. For the last three years,

Aaron has worked as a full time goldsmith/bench jeweler; making,

repairing, and altering jewelry for a jewelry store in Eugene, OR.

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Aaron says, "Photography, specifically film photography, has been a deeply

meaningful way of capturing my experience, yet I have never sold

my photography" so he joins idk to "to be more involved in the

greater art community and connect to other artists". 

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​Portfolio Artist Statement:

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"As a part time photographer shooting landscapes, primarily with 35mm film, I am not simply observing
an environment and documenting it, I am capturing a memory on the journey of self discovery. I am experiencing my world by honing in on a fleeting moment. Photography, however, is not my primary medium, professionally, I am a goldsmith and a stone setter. As such, I spend a lot of time working under a microscope on a scale most are not familiar with; zoomed in to a point of seeing the intricacies of my unique fingerprint or to identifying the micro inclusions within a gem that make it also one of a kind.
Similarly, when experiencing my world behind the lens of a camera, I am zooming in and capturing the intricacies of my unique experience. I am capturing, and therefore sharing with others, a memory that I will never truly experience again. In a world of instant gratification and dopamine starved brains, film photography grounds me as I discover what I find important, valuable, and worthy of capture. I cannot and do not do this objectively.

 

Carlos Ruiz Zafon elegantly articulated this unavoidable subjectivity of our experience when he said: “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” Similarly, when creating any sort of art, the artist is simply capturing the things that they already have within themself whether or not they are aware of it. My work, regardless of medium, portrays the melancholy, the joy, the tension, the calm, the beauty and the ugly that can be found deep within me. I create so I can both lose myself
and find myself. I create, in order to help myself and others see, accept, experience, and ultimately love what we already have inside of ourselves and the natural world. Within my work, I strive to connect with the world around me while I seek to better understand myself and my experience". 

-Aaron James Taylor

 

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