WELCOME TO BROWNWOOD,TX
Introduction to the book "Character Project, "published by Chronicle Books and produced by the Aperture Foundation. -MY FAMILY TREE goes back five generations in central Texas. Brownwood is where I learned to milk a cow, gather eggs from the coop, and saddle a horse. It is also where I remember watching my great-grandfather cut the heads off chickens, making soap in the kitchen with my great-grandmother, and making family trips to watch hometown football—the epitome of Texas spirit. These memories are a far cry from the New York surroundings I am accustomed to today, but they inform my ethical choices as a person and my artistic choices as a photographer. My intention for this project was to look for the wild and woolly, quiet and intense, quirky and idiosyncratic spirit of the small Texas town I remembered. Using family and personal connections to gain access to the homes and businesses that make this part of America tick, I wanted to capture the strength and character of a town built on faith and determination, while highlighting the individuals who comprise it. When I went back, I found that Brownwood wasn’t as sentimental or as tough as I remembered it. The people I met, who in their way of talking and acting may be unmistakably “Texan,” are a lot more nuanced and complicated than my memory had allowed. They’re characters, yes, but they’re not caricatures. They’re just like the aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends I am connected to through generations. With Character Project, I started out trying to capture a slice of contemporary America. But what I walked away with was something much broader and more introspective than I had anticipated: I expanded the perception of my history. Before I went back, I kept wondering how things would have turned out, how different I would look today if I had stayed in Texas. When I look at these pictures now, I see that they are a way of creating not just new memories but also, inevitably, new fictions. Any photograph is an incomplete truth. My hope is that these pictures of Brownwood trigger your own individual images and ideas about “home,” however similar to or different from these pictures your images may be. – Eric McNatt