Housebound

My daughters push from my womb, pull from my breast, drop from my arms.
My only respite from this constant breaking away is my memory.
I have to sober up from the intoxicating moments of holding my children.
Like postcards from a heavenly journey,
I make photographs to keep these drunken feelings alive.

Initially a simple love story, this scenario grew increasingly more complex. My second daughter came in wailing just as my father began to pass away in a cloud of dementia. My mother, now alone, struggled to invent each new day. 

I felt trapped in domestic bliss. My camera seized on the intensity of the smallest moments and the most inconsequential objects. Pomegranates bled, egg beaters oozed, my daughter floated face down in her dreams. I photographed everything that made me pause. 

The intensity of my daily submergence in family has subsided and I can breathe again. Or perhaps I have finally grown accustomed to the rhythm of communal living. When I look at these images, I revisit this altered state of mind that saw magic in milk teeth and sex in watermelon. These simple scenarios of home and family have become my personal icons for the complexities of growing up and growing old.

VIEW PORTFOLIO

Collections
Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium
Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Solo Exhibitions
2008. Southwestern College, Midcareer Retrospective, San Diego, CA
1999. Blue-Sky Gallery, Housebound, Portland, OR
1996. University of Colorado, Housebound, Boulder, CO

Group Exhibitions
2009. Myhren Gallery, The Family Stage with Todd Hido, University of Denver, CO
2002. SF Camerawork, Picturing Domestic Space, curator Diana Gaston, San Francisco, CA
2002. Fotofest, Discoveries Show, curator Tim Wride, Houston, TX
2000. SFMOMA Artists Gallery, New Photography, San Francisco, CA