When I was photographing roadkill animals for my BFA thesis, I thought a lot about roadkill in general and about what I could do to make engaging photographs that communicated meaning. I continually received advice and suggestions, at times for wild ideas that I myself didn’t pursue but that I hope to see executed someday (at one point an artist who creates vehicle fatality memorials out of roadkill animals was mentioned. I’d still like to find these images!). Using the bodies of animals to literally spell out a message is a concept I’d never seen before.
In her series Love Notes from the Road, artist Millee Tibbs arranges roadkill snakes found on Wyoming roads into the short sentiments stamped onto Sweetheart candies. Many of the messages are layered in meaning: “I Miss You” when the animal wasn’t “missed” by a vehicle; “I Long For You” made up of long, thin creatures; snakes, animals commonly despised even in the rural West, forming the words “Hold Me.” The series’ title itself includes the idiom “from the road,” literal at the same time as figurative. It suggests “love notes written while on a car trip,” as well as “messages from the creatures who walk on the road” or “from the road the animal walks on.”
From “Love Notes from the Road”
Visit artist's site: milleetibbs.com
Found via: Life Framer
Posted May 6th, 2015
