Mom-i

(Work in progress)

We called my mother’s mother, Mom-i.

My Mom-i passed down to my mother and me her stubbornness, independence, light eyes, dainty hands, and a skill for sewing. The lingering sensation of not belonging-a motif threading through my own life-seems to have been woven into the lives of my mother and Mom-i as well. My Mom-i passed away when I was a teenager. What I know of her comes from my childhood memories and my mother’s stories. Memories are notoriously unreliable, and our present selves greatly influence how we recall the past. Who was Mom-i, really? Can I know her impartially? What other parts of her are threaded through me?

Just like when I was a child, I take my camera into nature to make sense of things. With the help of the women in my family, we recreated scenes from my childhood, which I then photographed. These scenes included Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom-i’s house, my Mom-i in her living room, and my Mom-i at her sewing table. I chose to set these recreations among the Redwood Trees because the Redwoods have been a safe haven for me. “Mother Redwood Trees” pass an incredible amount of information to their seedlings-some of which we understand, and some that remain a mystery beneath the surface.

This project has been an exercise in empathy and a search for belonging.