Color Dying Light Sam Falls 9 x 12 in., saddle-stitched, 16 pages, self cover, color offset Edition of 500 ISBN 978-0-9800935-9-9 Publication date: August 2009 14 USD http://www.hasslabooks.com In the spring of Obama's first year in office I was driving Sam to an Easter service at a Mennonite church in Portland, and he described to me, in one sentence, the feeling he often hoped to convey in his work. "It's like floating in a warm bath" he said, "not having to make a decision just yet."
Last time I spoke with him, he said he wanted more abstraction. He said, "Show me anything I've never seen before." Some might take this to betray a certain cynicism or discontent with the world as it is. I would disagree. Sam's work is more hyper-real than surreal. The fantasy contained in his photographs is not a move away from reality, but closer to it. So close that recognizable forms change shape. Through the devotion of his eye we might better understand the infinite complexity of every subject which surrounds us, thus our world grows larger. This expanding universe may not always be able to make me happy, but when I look at Sam's photos, it grants me what Roland Barthes found to be one of thet most elusive sensations of all, ease.
- Joshua Willey, August, 2009
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