The people who tell us stories throughout our lives often lend us the language and frameworks to narrate our own experiences.  For me, these inspiring storytellers were my mothers and seashells.  At night, I bribed my mothers with different things to hear at least one more story before bed.  I loved the worlds they recreated with their words and the love embedded in their retelling.  When my family visited the beach when I was young, I remember collecting seashells and eagerly pressing them to my ear, hoping that if I listened closely enough that they too would tell me their histories.  Though I only heard the ambient noise of the seagulls above, the waves below, and the tourists cranky about sand blowing in their eyes reverberating inside, my imagination concocted new stories about the world I observed around me and I loved this act of collaboration.  This practice of being present, combing through moments to tap into singular frequencies, listening, holding, and lingering, has translated well into my practice of photography, the original seashell tool now replaced by a camera. 

These selected images are photographs taken starting at age fourteen that highlight specific moments of love and presentness.  The series is also accompanied by found and recorded audio that transforms still snapshots into sentient stories of maternal love, family history, gaining independence, and finding home in myself and the world around me. 

completed as part of studio art major at St. Olaf College, ART 343: Senior Studies in Studio Art, Spring 2022

installation shots