05/08/2026
[ FIELD NOTES: THE DEVIL WATER ]
LOCATION: Baugo Creek / Ferretti Park, IN.
CIRCA: May 2026.
​Most people who walk these trails see a quiet creek, but the Potawatomi knew it as Baubaugo: "Devil Water." It was a name earned through centuries of sudden, violent floods—a river that could turn from a trickle to a demon in a matter of minutes. Walking the Palisades today, you can still feel that "devilish" weight in the shadows. I wanted to capture the park not as a bright, recreational space, but as a landscape of memory and atmosphere. It’s a place where the air feels thicker, and the silence is layered with the industrial ghosts of the old 19th-century mills that once lined these banks.
​For me, as an 80s baby, these woods feel like a return to a more intentional kind of world. It’s in the sensory details that usually get lost: the way the light catches the weathered white text of a trail sign against the dark thicket, the sudden, sharp pulse of a red cardinal in the brush, or the eerie, graceful silence of a lone swan on the ink-dark water.
​This is a study of a landscape that feels like it’s holding its breath—caught somewhere between its rugged history and the quiet, heavy soul of the Indiana woods.
​Location: Baugo Creek / Ferretti Park. Elkhart, IN.
Circa: May 2026.
Series: An American Narrative // The Midwest
![[ FIELD NOTES: THE DEVIL WATER ]LOCATION: Baugo Creek / Ferretti Park, IN.CIRCA: May 2026.​Most people who walk these tr...](https://img5.photlo.com/728/942/1614170637289424.jpg)
