Candace Biggerstaff
Artist Statement
I was raised in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California, the youngest of five children. When I was five my parents divorced, weekends were spent with my dad, weekdays with my mother and stepfather. I was exposed to contrasting lifestyles depending on whom I was with. By the time I was twelve I lived with my dad full time. At the age of 12, my dad gave me my first camera. Growing up, I had conflicting ideas about what was a normal childhood. I began photographing others as a way to examine, through my camera, what a conventional life and family looked like. I became a hidden observer. When I was nineteen my father passed away, and that included any stable family connection. I decided to join Circus Vargas with my soon-to-be husband, Bill. His father is a Circus Historian and collector, who was already traveling with Circus Vargas. My journey started as a whim, an escape. I traveled with the circus for almost two years. Many years later, I started shooting circus programs for my father-in-law. At this time I had a family and husband, a career at motion picture studios such as Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, and CBS. I battled my childhood traumas and emerged much more educated and focused with my camera. I reconnected on my journey with documenting the circus individuals and their families.
For the past three decades, I have been photographing the intentional communities, nontraditional families, collectives that form around traveling circuses. This focused exploration has a genesis in my own search for family and community. As many circuses have disappeared or adapted, I am acutely aware of the clock ticking and the need to capture a culture that is in transition. I am passionately engaged in my continued documentation of the America Circus, by taking truthful, nonjudgmental, respectful images of circuses. I admire the creators, and families who relish this way of life.
Candace Biggerstaff | Ashland, OR