By Judith Leitner
July 27, 2012
I’d like to share a story with you, a splendid story.
I began crafting this journal years ago, when I was searching for a way to understand my mother Rosa. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and I was coming home from ‘Away’ after a long absence. I remember that moment of insight when I understood, with sparkling clarity, that my camera would be my paper and my eyes would be my pen and Rosa would be my story’s artful hero.
I made pictures of Rosa for 10 years. Her story became, through my camera’s lens, a richly textured narrative about family, everyday life, relationships and home and hospital landscapes. Love, memory, change, mind, beauty, the photograph, light and shadow, hands, windows and space and time- above all time- became themes and questions that wove themselves in and out, over and under in my visual journal; indeed, these themes were natural metaphors for Rosa’s illness. Throughout my story, the camera held my hand, allowing me as daughter and artist to stand back and to step in – the duality of detachment and intimacy.
In my next entry I’ll tell you about the beginning of my journey as daughter [...] continue the story