From the Waiting Room (2)

This is an image from a current series titled "From the Waiting Room." On April 1st, 2023 I flew to Duluth, MN to be by my father's side during his final days. He was put on hospice care due to terminal lung cancer. I found myself not really knowing how to process the information or how to be supportive of my mother through this trying time. All I could do was be present. After he passed away on April 9th, I returned home and began to process my grief. As a photographer, I relate my experiences to images. I find myself looking back through old photographs as a way to reconnect myself to times past. Naturally, I would scroll back to the images in my phone's camera taken during the week that I was with him in the hospital. There were no photographs of my father or any of my family members-- only arguably mundane images taken looking out the window of the hospital and waiting room or snippets of my surroundings. I am printing these images on fabric and hand stitching them using embroidery thread. There is a contemplative nature to stitching- a time to process, reflect, and allow myself to sink in to the environment I was in that held so much meaning. The images become objects that hold significance and purpose and are transformed from snapshots in a cloud of digital space, giving them tactile weight and presence in the physical world.