Artist Statement

My Mother My Self is my journey to explore and understand the mother I hardly new. My mother passed away in 1994 when I was twelve years old. Of course this meant I didn’t understand a lot of things, how she died, and who she was not only as a mother but also as a woman. I found myself asking so many questions when working on this Polaroid project. What had happened in her life to lead down the path of drugs and alcoholism? Why did she avoid any real emotional connection to her children? She was born at a time and into a lifestyle wherein having children wasn’t really a choice so did she even want them? My Mother My self-explores the complexities of the mother daughter relationship. Can I be a daughter if there’s no mother to lash rage at? Can I be a daughter without the physicality of a relationship?