Pictures of Birds

Before my mother descended into the underworld of dementia, she used to collect shells. I’ve always feared that the shells she brought home would haunt her and, in turn, would haunt me. That they weren’t meant to decorate bathrooms and the bottoms of drawers. Even when birds pick up shells for food, they leave behind the hard mineral remnants to disintegrate and be reborn as something else entirely. In this way and others, I feel the presence of ghosts. Pictures of Birds is a series examining family, home, and mortality. Longboat Key, a Floridian island of condos and snowbirds, became the strange chosen backdrop of my parents’ fading health and their children’s mourning process. During my visits, I immerse myself in the fears, gestures, and glances of people preoccupied with death and preservation. I endeavor to photograph these obsessions and the ineludible nature of regeneration, acts of transubstantiation, psychological adaptations, and spiritual transformations. Now my mother sees ghosts while sleeping and awake. I sit with her when I can and ask the ghosts to tread gently as we simultaneously die and are reborn as something else entirely. Some of the ghosts are my ancestors. Some are angels. All are birds.