"Making Our Spaces Sacred" is my first short documentary and features some of Baltimore's most dynamic artistic, spiritual, and cultural leaders. It is rooted in my deep love of stories about the African American experience, especially our untold and rarely heard stories. This video began as a conversation with a friend in 2021. I now have over 10 hours of recorded conversations along with footage and photographs of outdoor sites around Baltimore City. My challenge was to either wait until I raised enough money to produce a full-length documentary OR share what I had with funding received from a modest MSAC individual artist grant. I'm glad I followed my gut. However short, there's so much meaning and beauty in this video that invites repeated viewings, which may be the gift of its length. Sometimes we artists must make the most of what we have and let the work stand for itself.

“Corn Walk” is a video corner installation in which mirror videos and audio create an immersive environment that expands viewer space via flatscreens or wall projections. Mirror videos produce everchanging patterns, open up space for the viewer, add 270 degrees to the 90 degree corner installation. In “Corn Walk” the camera seems to press forward, evoking the physical and visual sensations of passing between dense walls of corn, intensified by the the crack and crunch (sounds) of leaves.

Time and space seem to expand for viewers of “Waterlilies, Madawaska River”, a video corner installation in which mirror videos -and audio- create an immersive environment via flatscreens or wall projections. Mirror videos produce everchanging patterns, while the corner installation opens up viewer space, adding 270 degrees to the 90 degree corner. “Waterlilies, Madawaska River” evokes the physical, visual and aural sensations of advancing towards waterlilies in the bow of a canoe in late summer. Lily pads floating in the distance eventually fill the screen, before giving way to underwater views of curving pink stems. ‘Reality’ is dislodged by inverted trees, mirrored reflections of the shoreline, the river current, the (audio) slosh of water and slap of the paddle.
Ann Stoddard recorded videos for the “Waterlilies -” from the bow of a canoe on the Madawaska River, Algonquin Park, Ontario. Stoddard is the videographer, director, and editor, assisted by her husband John Straub who paddled stern. [Together Stoddard and Straub have paddled rivers and lakes in Wisconsin, the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and Algonquin Park, ON.] Stoddard has been canoeing the Madawaska since early childhood.

Time and space seem to expand for viewers of “Patuxent River, Chesapeake Bay.” In this 2-Channel video corner-installation, videos and audio create an immersive environment via flatscreens or wall projections. Mirror videos produce everchanging patterns, while the corner installation opens up viewer space, adds 270 degrees to the 90 degree corner. “Patuxent River, Chesapeake Bay Watershed” evokes the physical, visual and aural sensations of canoeing the Patuxent in mid-summer. On mirrored screens the camera drifts towards a shoreline green with arrowhead and arum plants that pierce surface reflections of sky and clouds. ‘Reality’ is shaped by insects, birds, the river current, the (audio) slosh of water and slap of the paddle. When completed in 2023, the “Water, Land, Sky- Chesapeake Bay” series of video installations will include videos recorded on rivers in the Bay watershed in Maryland, as well as on rivers in the District, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and Virginia.
Ann Stoddard recorded videos for the “Patuxent River, Chesapeake Bay Watershed” from the bow of a canoe. Stoddard is the videographer, director, editor, and bow paddler, assisted by her husband John Straub who paddled stern. Together Stoddard and Straub have paddled rivers and lakes in Wisconsin, the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and Algonquin Park, ON.] Stoddard learned to canoe in early childhood.