Sustaining Loss (site page under construction)
I began this project by photographically recording the most visual memories of my mother's funeral, the tent and awaiting chairs. I worked through the realities and hidden sensibilities in the unconscious to communicate my loss, as well as try to evoke a shared emotional response from my audience. The metamorphosis in each image soon transformed into the entire body of work, constantly changing from detachment to connection, absence to awareness, and burden to release. Because of my desire to work from the unconscious and override the technician, I chose the most instinctual instrument as my means of documentation, the pinhole camera. My recollections were blurry; therefore, I built my own camera to alter the focus. I then digitized the negatives and used twentieth century technology to consciously emphasize certain aspects of the images and create photographs reminiscent of the nineteenth century. Finally, the work was output on iris watercolor prints to achieve a softer feeling, a more illustrative and less documentary effect.