Writes Gray about Jack's Place:
These photos are a part of a larger series of images exploring the textures and patterns found on one rural homestead in Ashland, Oregon. As the town continues to expand and gentrify, the property is increasingly surrounded by condominiums and housing developments, coffee bars and mini-malls. These signs of affluence stand in contrast to a yard full of rusting farm equipment, forgotten flea market treasures and decaying ford trucks.
Since I first began to photograph Jack's rustscapes in 2005, the city of Ashland has condemned a portion of the property to make way for a new housing development. Soon the collection of old cabinets, plumbing fixtures, appliances, bicycles and storm windows will be gone. They will be replaced by slabs of new concrete and rows of condominiums painted in pleasing muted tones of "Tuscan Red" or "Sienna Green".
This series of images is my record of a vanishing piece of the Oregon landscape. I am profoundly grateful to Jack for allowing me to photograph his property and take these small colorful bits back with me. I am grateful for being able to peek inside the old Oregon, which is rapidly becoming the New West. No set of photographs can stop the wheels of progress or delay the sweep of gentrification, but perhaps a photograph can preserve some small part of what is, for now, Jack’s place.
