layers

2023 - ongoing

My mother was the mainstay for our family stories.  She could identify people in pictures from long ago, know who owned a particular collection of spoons or whose fans were collected in a box in the basement.  I loved our conversations, going through boxes from my grandmother’s home and hearing the stories she told of people from two centuries back. When my mother  died and I inherited all the family boxes, I missed  my mother in more ways than I thought possible.  “Layers"  emerged from one of these boxes. It contained remnants of my grandmother’s life - letters, recipes, Christmas cards and other forgotten bits of her being here.

Every family has their own layers of history - memories and stories  passed down from generation to generation. Some fade into oblivion while others are found within the pages of journals and letters. Sepia photographs reveal people I remembered from my mother’s stories; others I’ve forgotten, leaving space for me to speculate and research.  At the end, these stores, whether accurate or embellished, are  narratives offering a glimpse into the lives of my family’s past.

Through the art of collage, I have pieced together fragments of my family’s history.  Stories began coming together, some real, some made up. Working on this project felt much like time traveling,  embarking on a journey to meet people who had previously existed only as distant characters in my family story.  Their lives gradually come into sharper focus, their stories more real and they themselves more authentic and endearing.