my mother is dying; my mother is dead
2019-2021; 2023-onward. It’s no surprise that my mother and her illness have been the subject of my work since she was diagnosed. My coping through art has taken many forms. My graduating portfolio “my mother is dying” conceived with her, embraced her body and her agency, her Joshua trees and her words. “After Mother,” a series of albums created two months after her death, was inspired by old photo albums she had taken at my age.
Since her 2016 diagnosis, I had diligently photographed her to preserve, uplift, and empower her through her “cancer journey.” But with her bloating, balding, and bruising form… there was nothing to empower or uplift. I had no desire to preserve something that would only further depress me and insult her. So I didn’t. I barely used a camera, and instead took to words thru what would later be my mother’s final months. The initial texts described the many conflicting feelings I had grappling with her past abuse, her traumatic hospitalization and eventual death, and my resulting and all-encompassing grief. It spans over a year from her passing.
In June 2020, I began to post to the Instagram account my_mother_is selections of the text, and in September 2020 I began to post them on Tumblr, where I also reblogged passages on grief, motherhood, nostalgia, and abuse. Those were then shared to the Instagram, in addition to old photographs of my mother and myself.
I no longer regularly post to these accounts, but I am planning to return in the future. I hope to publish and/or exhibit this collection in some form in the future. Until then, I continue as a motherless child.
