Twenty-four ago, I began what I thought would be strictly a documentary project, it turned into something else along the way. My life became intertwined with those in the communities I was photographing. They became my friends, my family. Back in 2003 a photography publication did an article on me and included my statement that I was not an objective observer. That still holds true. Especially here. The Homeplace is comfort. The place you can go back to no matter how many years have passed. It will always hold something familiar something safe and will always welcome you back no matter how long or why you have been away with open arms.

In the decade after the Civil War small African American settlements sprang up around the horse farms in Kentucky’s Inner Bluegrass Region. These villages, or hamlets, as they have come to be known were originally inhabited by freed slaves who were needed to work on the area farms. Today, many of the residents are descendants of the freed men and women who founded them. In some cases, as many as seven generations of a family have lived in succession on a “homeplace” in these communities.