Denielle

Denielle had a fine arts degree from a fine arts college, a path she was set on by her parents who hired her a painting mentor in high school, who had taken her on a tour of the great European museums in middle school, who had bought her professional camera equipment in grade school, who had enrolled her in an alternative education preschool, and before that named her Denielle instead of Danielle and proceeded to snootily correct every nonminority who even came close to pronouncing the name in the traditional way from birth until the present day.

She excelled in her studies, pleasing her teachers and parents. After graduation she campaigned for an NEA grant on the suggestion of her peers. She secured it, dazzling at every turn, on the premise of 'A Multimedia Exploration of America." However, when Denielle set out on this exploration, she only found a vacuum. Rudderless she traveled around the country, painting landscapes and photographing steel canyons. Challenging local mores with shocking installations in the South, recording interviews with local legends in the west, but none of it came together for her. People looked at what she was trying to do, and then turned to her and asked questions. Denielle was tired of people looking at her, they had been doing it her whole life.

Denielle found herself in the desert, photographing the craggy face of a former fitness guru in the high atmosphereless contrast of the mesa. Shots of him with his proud barrel chest, his winning smile and twinkling eyes, looking like a wrinkly version of the same photographs used in comic book strong man ads in the 50s. When they were done Denielle packed away her equipment and the guru rose to leave. He shifted his weight forward and leaned heavily on his gnarled cane, gripping it with massive paws that turned a screaming white at the knuckles, as he forced himself upright. She saw him bent and precarious, eyes closed and face obscured as he put on his hat. Denielle threw her gangly arms in the air and yelled "Stop!"

She had traveled very far to find the small Nebraskan antique shop. The proprietor met her at the door, expecting the visit from the extensive phone calls and research that proceeded Denielle. Laid out were all of the Native American pieces, and she spied what she had come all this way for. Holding up the beaded moccasins Denielle explained "These belonged to a great leader of men. A scourge of the plains who vowed to beat the cavalry back to the Atlantic Ocean. He was a transcendental mystic that haunted the dreams of presidents and the gory pages of dime paperbacks." She held them out reverently for inspection.

"But they're so small." said the shop owner.

"I know," answered Denielle opening her camera bag. "That's why I like them."