As I remember there was a period of four years or so, perhaps longer, during which he created these still lifes. The nascent phase of these photos was around 1978 when we met in Binghamton. Bruce was a collector of found items, the detritus left behind on the streets of Binghamton, which he used in these assemblages. There was a wholesale florist near our apartment and I collected and dried the discarded flowers, of which there was an abundance. I met the proprietor one morning who told me that he could not sell flowers with even the slightest blemish, thus the bounty I regularly found. Bruce used these flowers in all stages of decomposition in these photos and incorporated the found items in ways that were aesthetically pleasing to him. As with all of his work, design, color, architecture, composition and scale were paramount. When asked by a friend what he wanted to achieve with his photographs he said that he had no agenda for himself or an observer, but that he was drawn to objects, people, places based on factors that he found both compelling and numinous. He spent hours creating these still lifes, set out on our living room floor to review overnight or over days; some were photographed after the first and only arrangement, others were manipulated over a period of days.

-Patricia Flery