ancestry

In 1954 my mother donned her red uniform and stood still as a proper photographer from St. Vincent visited them on the hill. She retells the story to me each time i look through the falling apart family albums with her. I asked her if she remembers the day and she looks at me with worry on her face. I guess she was about 9 or 10 in the photograph. The more I study this photograph the more I see myself, not so much in any of the faces but in her gesture. She is at the top with her hands on her hip and frizzy hair making some funny expression.

I am wondering how much lies I am now convincing myself of as I squint to see the details. I am sure that a lot of her was passed on to me, if not then I would have to start from scratch, without her. I just finished reading Moyra Davey's "Long Life, Cool Bright" and i adore her writing. Her love for the everyday, for the things that fill her life and also the ruptures. I don't know if I can look at photographs that honor these quotidian scenes but in conjunction with writing I find them most fascinating. I also have her as a lecturer this semester and thrilled about it.

The kitchen is the other extension from the small house you see, my grandparents had seven children. Nine of them stored up in such a confined space of course most of the refuge and escape came from outside. I can barely imagine what Bequia looked like back then: sparsely populated, rolling hills of dry grass, small wooden houses, pineapple skirts on mothers, children everywhere, empty harbors, Jetty less. All sorts of blue and green.

digging

I went home and dragged the only real piece of sound out of my parent's old hiding spot for things that mean a lot to them, an old beat up suitcase with hard labels and a combination that has never worked, not to my knowing. Unfortunately when i was 15 and very introverted I re-recorded over it for about a minute, while I listened to Children's Bible Hour and attempted to update everyone's life. It is to uncomfortable for me to listen to without cringing and wanting to form some sort of time machine to go back and just hug my former self. It was hard living in my head then and some things don't change, this audio however makes me laugh so hard I cry. My parents were so happy to hear that I could in some way make it immortal, after all this is the role of me as an artist in their lives. If nothing else I can preserve them and make them ageless and available to my future.

I am reading Roland Barthes "Camera Lucida" Part II of it will stay with me for a long time, so much of what he says about history, death and time passing is so relevant to me and what I am trying to do right now and will continue as a struggle for the rest of my creative life. My parents have been married for 43 years today.

newish

I did have the opportunity over summer to shoot some stills which made me feel really nostalgic if i could call it that. I have really missed the camera a great deal, while preparing for this semester I have to remind myself that even though this place seems/feels/is foreign the stories that i want to tell are universal even though the displacement is challenging.

these are a continuation of the work that has been shown here through the past two months.

time: an endless loop

Going back and forth so often gives my soul

something likened to a whiplash after a deep collision.

I wish i felt something else right now other than the blistering

reality I am faced with.

Away from everything.

the rhyme

the threads

the new ceilings

the unending smiles

the warm days

the biting

and the avoiding stares full of that thing called love.

rubbing them together may cause friction

I am still trudging along with my vacation coming to an end with speed that could bend my neck and break it. Luckily I am finding a heap of solace in my saltwater logged evenings. I really don't know what would become of me if I sat at home for too long.

I am finding it a little easier now to take hold of the camera, and position it and find stories that i want to tell. I am interested in narratives not in the traditional sense but in placing photos with each other to help break up and extend the notion of memory. When i was younger I smeared plums on my face, they took a photograph of me as I let the sweetness produce a smile. I have been looking for it for three days now.

Alas maybe in my early 20's I removed it only of course to be very irresponsible leaving it somewhere within the halls of one of my numerous abodes. It made me very angry that I didn't realize how significant recalling these moments would become and having some sort of reference. Also made me realize that I need to collect all of these pieces here very soon, we have over 8 albums that are falling apart and finally i managed to pluck a photograph of me at 9 days old out. It will be the crux of my investigation this semester.

windswept.

Sometimes it is so undeniably hard to feel something and

translate it via an image and have it explain, and occupy the

space words do. The failure of photography is

something that I find greatly motivating and frustrating.

all up in the gutter

Jessica came down today and I guess that the stress of summer is starting to get to me, that faint feeling of anxiety and paranoia raising its head. It feels like crunch time but really it isn't, this is how I consciously motivate myself. I freak out and give myself a hard time. That being said I feel good about what is going on, mostly I feel relieved that my push came to a shove and something substantial will come from it all.

I am waiting for a boat, for a captain and hoping that when i get back from St. Lucia it will all fall into place. Today I found a recording that was done when i was 6 and my sister 4, it made me laugh so hard I cried, or I just cried. It is beautiful when things like that resurface and there is some semblance. I am going to rest and try to get back on my diet, I feel a lot of frustration awakening in me from dropping off the ball. All I have to do is set a goal.