Artist Statement
I have great memories of my Aunt Stella and Uncle Ralph. Since both my grandparents on my mother's side were gone by the time I was three years old, I looked to them like grandparents. My Uncle Ralph would ask for a handshake and proceed to squeeze the life out of my hand – all while telling me to quit shaking his hand so hard. And my Aunt Stella, giving cards filled with $2 bills on any and every holiday – even if they seemed like made up ones – just so I knew I was loved and cared about.
This project attempts what it would be like for my kids to know a younger version of my aunt, my uncle, my family, over a quarter century before I would meet them.
To achieve this, I took vintage photo prints from my Aunt Stella’s album and scanned them to create digital files. Then, I took photographs that I took of my children, Rowan and Luna, and inserted them into the digitized scans through a photo manipulation process, where adjustments such as blending, color correction, noise, and blur processing were all used to create a finished manipulated photograph. This manipulation creates an effect of blending old and new, but to still give the new a certain texture where you can tell there is separation of the time of photograph, albeit subtly.
I then used text (handwritten by my mother) to mirror what my aunt had written on the photos (dates, people location), or inserted mirrored dates from the stamp made by the manufacturer, to show when the photos of Rowan and Luna were taken. All of this was done digitally in a color burn setting, as to maintain the original prints which are approximately 60-70 years old.
To see this project come to fruition is fascinating; A way to pass down and connect my memories as a child to my children now, and a way for both sides to get to know each other with wonder, laughter, and curiousness; just as was shown to me by these members of my family in the album, and my kids. A true sense of full circle.