Why do I run?

Why am I training for the next 4 months to run 26.2 miles?

Thankfully, running entered my life two years ago.

My running practice is a major tool in my healing journey, a partner to mindfulness practice. Together they are helping me to keep my head above and navigate the waves of grief and trauma. Why do I run?

I am grateful for my running practice. It is helping me to show up and love myself, so I can show up more fully for others.

Last year, I decided to run my first marathon, the Boston Marathon, in honor of my late brother Joseph, who was a dedicated member of the Boston Bulldogs Running Club until his death on June 17, 2021.

When he found the Boston Bulldogs Running Club in 2019, he found himself, he saw his light shine through the cracks. While only forty-four years young, my brother had been battling with addiction, for more than half of his life.

This will be my second Boston. I am running for my brother, for myself, for The Boston Bulldogs Running Club, and in memory of the people, we have lost to addiction and their friends and family.

The Boston Bulldogs Running Club is so much more than a running club. They are a group of kind-hearted warriors providing a safe community for all who are adversely affected by addiction and mental illness. 

Consider giving a gift of any amount, 100% of the funds raised through this campaign goes directly to the Boston Bulldogs! 


Thanks for reading, and thanks for giving!

with love and gratitude,
Jo Ann

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Let’s heal together, spread awareness, and remove the stigma of mental illness, addiction, and overdose deaths with the community power of remembrance and storytelling.

There was a time in my life for about from (2007-2012) I lived in the dark(room). 

Making pictures itself has been a source of my light for as long as I can remember.  

At first, the thing about photography was not the taking of the photos, 

it was a chance for me to hide. 

When I was a teenager, and I held my camera to my eye, I wasn’t taking pictures to see the world around me, I was photographing to hide from my world. 

I became the “family photographer” to hide. 

It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that, got in touch with how I felt, the feeling, 

the joy of PHOTOGRAPHING when I  looked through the camera lens, 

I was making pictures to see and be seen. 

From my first steps into the dark, I knew I found my light.

Now wanting to print and show what I saw.

That’s when it all clicked. 

 Opening and unpacking of a portfolio of darkroom prints from a decade or more ago. 

09.19.22

Intro to our family’s memorial garden. This is a living memorial for those who are no longer with us.  Msg me if you would like to add a name(s) of your loved one(s). 

Thanks to a Facebook memory, I was reminded of the time my exhibit for Walking the Block at the LGBT Center in NYC was reviewed by the New Yorker.  This was Sept 2010.  When the review came out, I was somewhere in the middle of the United States, at about the halfway point in my 10,000+ mile solo road trip from Brooklyn to California and back to Brooklyn.  

I was on my Proud to Serve,  Kickstarter-funded road trip to meet, listen to, document, and share the stories of 46 LGBT Servicemembers who served in the US Military before and during “Don’t, Ask, Don’t Tell”.     Read blog entries from this date in 2010.

Now 12 years later, I am sitting in a  “former shit coop” which is now our “make shit shed” looking through the prints from WTB project.  These images were not on display at the LGBT Center, they were also at B.Hollyman Gallery in Austin, opening in the summer of 2011. This is where I met my wife, Kate (in ‘07) 6 years before Burnes would move into the front space of Wally Workman Gallery.   A year after my exhibit opened at B.Hollyman Gallery (06/11), Burnes would officiate our Texas wedding (9/22/12). Coming up on our ten-year anniversary!!  But this was our second ceremony, as we had eloped and were legally married several months before in NYC, as it was still not legal to get married in the state of Texas at the time. 

What has changed since I worked on these projects -  the laws, for now, as we see every day, there is a movement to take away the freedom of LGBTQI Americans.  While we LGBTQI people can marry, and serve in the military openly and proudly without being kicked out because of who we are or who we love. There are still people who live in fear because of where they live, because of who they are, because of who they love. I know this will always be the case, what we can do is share our, share their stories, what people fear is the unknown.  In the end, we are all human, we are all in search and in need of love. I don’t need you to understand me, or me you. What we all need is to be loved and accepted and free of judgment. 

Want to own a print of the Walking the Block exhibit? Head over to Paper Goods to see what’s available! 

A video walk through of the exhibit prints from Walking the Block (NYC & Austin). 

The Austin skyline looking north from the south 1st Street Bridge.

The first image was taken on New Year’s Eve 2006/2007. I took that image while riding my pedicab across the south 1st street bridge. The W Austin, The Austonian, Spring, Monarch, 360 building all were being built. The Frost Bank building was the tallest building in Austin.

The second picture was taken on January 30th (2015), eight years later. The only constant in the changing skyline are the cranes. Notice, you can no longer see the Frost bank from the bridge.

View the entire series, Arms of Progress, shot while my riding my bike around Austin from 2006-2015, minus the end 2008 thru 2010 when K and I lived in Brooklyn, NY 

Back in 2008 when I was driving a pedicab, I was the subject of a short documentary film by two UT documentary film students. Directed by Katy Stafford

Self portrait in our garden level  apartment in Bed-Stuy for Suzanne Opton’s class at ICP- 2009