Culls is a photographic series that documents my years as a tree planter, utilizing layered negatives to enhance the effect of nostalgia, memory and time. The experience of being a tree planter influenced the development of my sense of self during formative years. The job itself presented an opportunity to explore mental strength and perseverance in an uncomfortable environment. It also enhanced my connection to an altered state of being, something that has continued to recur in subsequent works within my art practice. In Webster's dictionary, the word cull means "to select, to collect: gather" ; within the tree planting world it is a description of those trees found at the end of a bag-up which are rendered implantable. This word also reflects my process as an artist sifting through memories via photography and text. To create the work, black and white negatives are sandwiched together in the enlarger with negatives of journal entries from the same time period. In this process, I want to explore two documentations – the written and the photographic – and collapse them into one image. The resulting prints are silver gelatin prints processed in a traditional darkroom. In 2006, I installed the original series within an installation which brought together sculpture, textiles and text.