About the project

2016 was the year that my world was forever changed. After lots of attempts, it was confirmed that we were going to be parents. I spent hours on the back patio of my apartment, taking photos to announce our good news. The Ultrasound scan with flowers, with a bunny from my childhood, styled on top of moss just so.
 
She came into the world with lots of ruckus on October 4, 2016. After 2 days of labor and a surprise emergency C-Section, she was finally here. I was a mother, and our new adventure began.
 
As my husband went off to work, I photographed our life together. Her little toes, fingers, nose. The faces that she made when she saw something new.
 
It also meant that I had to contend with what else came with becoming a mother. Attempting to recover from a tricky birth. A uncomfortable pregnancy that left a athletic me on the sidelines for 8 out of the 10 months of pregnancy. A baby that didn’t want to sleep without me and thus two parents that also didn’t sleep well. Postpartum depression made this new adventure a bit less fun than I had always dreamed of.
 
Parenthood was beautiful, rough, and exhausting.
 
I found my camera to be the best way to cope with my new change.
 
I began to evolve and experiment in photographing the world that she noticed. The bugs on the ground, the beautiful flowers that were blooming. Her little toes in the blades of grass. Our first play in the sand at the ocean. Being a momma was this beautiful chaos. My world opened back up to the arts in a way that I hadn’t explored since I was in my teens. I had come full circle.
 
When she was almost 2, we hit yet another milestone. This one was two stories, yellow with a porch and quite the garden for us to care for. This was a whole new territory for us. The owners before us were avid gardeners and created this magical yard for us to be the next caretakers of. Full of fruit trees, flowering trees, strawberries, grapevine, pear, and blueberries. We had loads of flowers that bloomed from tulips to roses. Oh, the roses.
 
I had been wrong about roses all along. I thought before that they were boring flowers. One that everyone received on Valentine’s Day or had to have in their gardens. But what I didn’t understand was that roses have personalities. There are hundreds of types of roses that are equally beautiful and finicky. And my love affair began.
 
My daughter and I would start to experiment a lot then. I would see a new photography technique or flower and she would help me set it up. Sometimes things went crashing down- but this was the fun in the creating. I had begun learning about Dutch still life’s with their full and dramatic flowers. Or the fruit with the wandering butterflies or bees in the mix. The beautiful flowers in contrast with the darkness got my attention and I was smitten.
 
Motherhood life is messy and unpredictable. Things tend to happen their way. You prepare for the perfect life, home or child - but that isn’t a reasonable expectation. Yet the pressure to create these things is still there.
 
The Dutch still life’s I love so are also a study in complexities. Fowers, butterflies or teacups are sometimes combined with decaying animals or rotting fruit. They told a story of the times, of the haves and the have nots that are also relevant to today.
 
My project is to combine the old with the new. Dutch still lifes combined with kids colorful food in their beautiful chaos. Balls splashing in fine China full of milk, cereal everywhere, fingers not spoons in the soup. The occasional fish or taxidermy bug comes to visit the table.
 
This project is about the complexities of raising children in this world. The perception of what parenting will be like and is, comes crashing down once the little ones come into our world. How it is a lot messy, but still quite beautiful, hidden in the chaos.