‘There is a great deficit in the language around grief. It’s not something we are practiced at as a society, because it is too hard to talk about and, more importantly, it’s too hard to listen to. So many grieving people just remain silent, trapped in their own secret thoughts, trapped in their own minds, with their only form of company being the dead themselves.’ -Nick Cave ‘Faith, Hope and Carnage’ w Sean O’Hagan
I thought I was done grieving, but I was wrong. I had been coming back to LA for several years after my mother passed away, but it wasn’t until I was living there again - and spending time at my parents’ house - that I realized grief is an ongoing process. It ebbs and flows, but never fully disappears. And while grief is a universal feeling, one’s experience of it is very individual.
Remnants of her presence are everywhere, still, in the house where I grew up. The wig she wore when she lost her hair to chemo, in her closet still full of clothes. Old bottles of pills tossed into a plastic bag. Sheet music left on her music stand. Notes on her desk. Walking past these items is both comforting and unsettling. She is here, but not present.
Absence and Presence is a theme I have been exploring for years in my work, but in this project it’s personal. I want to document the traces left behind from her objects and in spaces that were important to her – and have meaning to me - before all that remains is a memory. This work reflects the grief I feel, and all the emotions inherent, about the passage of time. It tries to capture effectively that uncertain edge between sadness and joy, hope and loss.
