Making friends with Ricky Dee started as a challenge to decipher a seemingly erratic and incomprehensible individual but pretty early on in our friendship I found that we had a lot in common. His dreams and desires are not that different from mine although he is nearly twice my age. A few months into our friendship I decided to document what I experienced of his life. I started by taking photographs and then recorded the many voice mails he left daily. Looking at the photographs and recordings I began to see reflections of an alternate self and imagined a life plagued by alcoholism and mental illness.
The photographs allowed me to put a distance between my friend and me but at the same time demanded of me to see the weaknesses, pain, joy and excitement resonate within me. In the end I never reached my goal of deciphering the erratic individual whom initially confused and enticed but through the process I learned to view and approach Ricky the way I’d like to be approached.