Spencer is a nonfiction filmmaker, photographer and writer from rural Maine. He has contributed to films and made photographs for many different people and organizations. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he plays in a band and produces documentaries. Each photograph is Fuji instant film and unique.”We were often in some body of water—the bay, the pond, the lake—or in motion between. Hair dripping, rushing back to reality in salt-stained clothes.
We were a patchwork family, briefly occupying an actual family’s home. I was the stand-in for the daughter, renting a room with a bed too short for my legs, pink sheets, and crayon drawings on the walls. We were overworked teachers and assistants, sweating, swearing and underpaid. And if not dying in the classroom, then briefly lazing in the yard or driving toward the sea; trading stories while wandering the coast, watching the dusk-light and fireflies fade into stars.
A stream of fellow artists filtered through the door, bringing beer and conversation or pulling us off on some adventure. They all laughed loudly—perhaps to ward off the exhaustion or the fact that we were all going broke. And each one left a mark, an idea, some piece of themselves I still carry.
At the end of the summer, polaroids lay strewn across the dash, were piled on the kitchen table. Others remained clamped between the pages of books. They had collected dust and imperfections, each one carrying some trace of our story.”
