The title "At the End of the Pavement" comes from my great aunt Hazel, who was our local florist and my best friend. She would take me along on her deliveries to "fix flowers" for funerals and weddings. Although I did not know it at the time this was the seed that would later grow into my love for little churches.

"Let's go for a ride to the end of the pavement", Aunt Hazel would say to us on those hot summer evenings. I guess it just seemed cooler riding along, windows wide open, the wind blowing, and every body's ice cream cones quickly melting away. Although the term originated in a time when the paved roads ceased at the town limits and the dirt roads took over from there, the essence of it was still present as I grew up.

Throughout my many peregrinations I became aware of how quickly the world of my youth had changed. Many of the little churches had disappeared. Many of the wooden churches had been bricked over and with their modernization had lost their charm and character. Others had disappeared completely, swallowed up by the kudzu vines or left to simply rot. Although there is sadness to the loss I was witnessing, however, there was another feeling that overpowered it. That feeling came to me many times during my journeys throughout the south. I've tried to convey it in my photographs. The feeling was the same one I experienced so many years before with my aunt. It was the feeling of peace and tranquility. The feeling one gets riding along with some one loved and your ice cream melting and not really caring. I would find myself lost in my thoughts down on some nameless road, driving aimlessly in search of yet another little church. The road would dip down a hill and rise up again to reveal around the bend a little church nestled gently among the tall pines of home.