In their late eighties my parents suffered from memory loss and dementia. Before they moved into a nursing home I made life-size cynotype portraits of them, often including items they were leaving behind. Creating the images was a form of therapy for me. I wanted to preserve who they were and where I came from. Because of mobility issues I set up a queen size bed in my garage, placed the light sensitive cyanotype fabric on the bed and then placed my parents on the fabric. I then wheeled them out in the sun for a 10-15 minute exposure. I often played my mom’s favorite music by Tony Bennett and we sipped fruit smoothies when we were done. The fun afternoons we shared making the portraits remain wonderful memories for me even though those memories quickly disappeared from my parents’ minds. Handyman includes many of the items from my dad’s workbench and The Gardener incudes some of my mom’s favorite flowers. Before Alzheimer’s became more advanced, my mom loved working in her gardens and my dad was always thrilled to help out with projects around our house.

Also part of the series is Dinner Plate Memories, cyanotype placemats created using my parents’ table settings with image transfers of family photographs.

What We Leave Behind was one of the winners of the Tokyo International Photography Festival in 2016 and traveled to Singapore, New York and Tokyo as part of the exhibit, “Origin”. It was a runner up for the Julia Margaret Cameron Award in 2017 and as a result was exhibited in Barcelona in October 2017.