Scratch-Off

       In this series I find discarded scratch-off lotto tickets that are dropped on the ground.  I then search for an image from the surrounding neighborhood to place inside the scratch-off area.  The discarded ticket becomes the framing device for the harsh reality of circumstance.

       The scratch-off lotto ticket represents an attempt to escape one's surrounding, a disconnect from one's environment, and a dim hope of being redeemed by sudden monetary gain.  The neighborhoods that I find these tickets in are blighted by poverty and neglect, and the social fabric is askew.  Upstate New York cities have long been on a slow decline, mired in entropy and stagnation.  Decaying urban centers are ringed by growing suburbs;  once vital cities have areas that are virtually empty; eerie ghost-towns where one rarely encounters other people.