Portfolio > Elegy

Untitled 1: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 2: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 3: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 4: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 5: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 6: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 7: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 8: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 9: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 10: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 12: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 13: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 14: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 15: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 16: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 17: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 18: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 19: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 20: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011
Untitled 21: from the series Elegy
Pigment Print
20" x 20"
2011

“What is excellent, /As God lives, is permanent; /Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; Heart's love will meet thee again.”
from Threnody by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Like the poem Threnody that Emerson wrote after the death of his young son, the series Elegy is both a lamentation on the death of a loved one and an acknowledgement of the beauty and importance of that life. Since the death of my father in 1997 I have struggled to find a way to communicate the deep grief I feel at his passing and also the gratitude I feel for having had such an extraordinary man in my life. It was not until the birth of my sons did I come to find at least one way to visually honor and weep for my dad. In an otherwise unremarkable moment with my boys it dawned on me that my playful interaction with them mirrored a time I shared with my father. I felt myself looking inward and outward with new eyes. In body my father is gone, but through me and now my children all the good that he was is very much alive. The skulls, bones, and skeletons in the images recognize his death, just as the celebratory and symbolic white flowers represent the new lives he continues to influence and nurture.