JOANN VERBURG: I was in Florida where my husband and I went to get away from the Minnesota winter and do some work. I think it was around 1989. We [went] with some friends from New York and they created a pair of pyramids in the sand down there. I decided that I wanted to have friends, build pyramids for me to photograph. I think it had to do with feelings of stability and lack of stability, transience.
The way that it started to work was that someone would build me a pyramid. And then I might actually manipulate the pyramid. I might put some kind of substance on the surface of it. Or maybe I might change the shape of it.
I go back the next day and the pyramid has maybe slumped a little bit or it's rained on. Often times I go back and some kid, you can see the size of the footsteps, has just stomped right in the middle of it.
I've positioned the camera for these pictures in such a way that you can't see the horizon line. Without the horizon I think it's a lot more ambiguous with the scale of what the pyramid is. I've been working to get a lot of the images to look like they're almost dissolving. That they're almost disappearing as you look at them.
