This image was captured by me on Sunday November 25th,2023, at the home of Ashley Addair, Artist|Mother, in Knoxville,Tennessee. It is the day that Ashley and I began discussing a personal collaboration that we are entering blindly, without regard. If I would've tried to stage this, it couldn't have been a more perfect depiction of Motherhood. Not that perfection is the goal, quite opposite, actually. However, It was not staged and Ashley was gathering materials for me to take photos for an upcoming art show in Miami and as I stood there waiting, this is what I saw. A true depiction of motherhood.
I have spoken with Ashley about the idea of me documenting her life as a mom, artist, human and she has so graciously met me with open arms. I want this to be a living, breathing, work, and so it shall be. For years I have done 365 projects of documentation with my own kids and life as a mom, but I feel like this project will be more of a raw depiction, since I will be an observer in her home. Whatever takes place is what I will photograph, record, and document. The good. The bad. The ugly. The beautiful.
When I was my own subject, I was mostly moved by the beautiful things in my life and so that is what I photographed. It was a coping mechanism. I needed to train my eyes to see the beauty that was unfolding because I definitely wasn’t feeling it. I was worn out, ragged, pulled into everyone’s orbit and had no orbit of my own, aka, Motherhood. It was too depressing for me to NOT romanticize my life, and that’s how this project will be different. I have no desire to make it perfect or beautiful, only to document what I see and hear.
No bias.
Raw;Vulnerable.
It has been a longing in me for quite sometime to conduct this type of documentation, but with another family other than my own, being the subject. To tell their story with an unbiased tongue.I am excited at what story will emerge. The unknown gives me tingles all over.
I am well aware of how gender roles and expectations, social status and careers,(or the lack thereof) as well as geography and life experiences, all play a vital role in the shaping of who we become or don’t become.
They are key elements to how we parent.
They are the standards to which we learn to love and to grow.
They help mold our art practices.
What fruit will this project bear? What truth will it tell? What lies will it reveal?
I am intrigued by the unknown and scared of it at the same time.
Duality.
I have a duality in me that oftentimes leaves me feeling chaotic or untrue to myself. How can I want both? How can they both be true? I don’t know, but they are. They just ARE. I am embracing the duality instead of fighting it. I am leaning into it. Letting go of what anything means and starting from scratch,forming my own thesis.
I believe Ashley and her family will be the catalyst to a much deeper narrative, one that I hope to be an unknown abyss. One that continues to evolve and change.
May I never be sated, but always content.
We have no expectations or desired outcome, I only wish to observe and record what I see through my lens as an outsider. We have set no limits. No constraints on time or material. We are letting this completely evolve as we evolve. We have GONE ROGUE:
{ From Ashley's WRASTLE MATCH, "So that I, (which is always an interation of we) will never not go rogue again." written on her living room floor.}