Traces I

WAXED DIGITAL PRINT, 17X11 & 24X14.5, 2005

The series “Traces” is rooted in both familial and fabricated truths and memories. It speaks to the residue of people forgotten – either sender or receiver no longer here to put meaning to time and place of text and image. On the one hand I am utilizing the postcards that my great-grandfather’s company produced and on the other I am using images and correspondence which are only connected by my own invention. Postcards are the sound-bites or snapshots of the written language… “wish you were here”, “many happy returns of the day”, “missing you”. Though postcards communicate, they don’t speak to the depth of substance to perhaps anyone but the writer or recipient. However, when interlaced with imagery, the fragmented text takes on new and convoluted meanings with only our imagination to cap its possibilities. By utilizing the fragmented image as a way to step beyond those photographed to a more empathetic read, the forgotten relics of one’s life begin to resonate as the “traces” of all of our lives.