fabricated family

"Real silence-speaking is the kind that comes out of people's mouths when they've got a secret stuck on the back of their tongues. I'm not sure if people silence-speak in order to drown the secret by covering it under so many other words, or if they silent-speak in order to dislodge the secret from the back of the tongue- using all the other words as elaborate levers and pulleys and in this way bring it to the front of the mouth, and then out into the open. Probably for both reasons. Atleast in this family it seemed to me that this was true." -Nomi Eve




I silent-speak most of the time my mouth is moving. I'm never actually uttering the words that are present when the thought of speaking originated.

I just finished "The Family Orchard" by Nomi Eve. This is a fabricated history of the author's family, as if it were pieced together though the handed down legends. It's quite beautiful because where does truth and speculation blend when generations are so far gone and how much of history is really honest to god fact?

I haven't met most of my family, but I know they are there across an ocean. I know them through acouple photographs and antecdotes. I have vivid memories from when I was very young, two and three years. Most people don't retain that, so I wonder if I actually did or if it was engrained in my memory like truth through the photographs and stories my parents would tell everytime they brought out an album.

I'm in a portrait class for the fall and I'm so excited to work again with what originally brought me to photography, yet I'm disappointed because there is nothing more I'd rather do than go and photograph the strangers that are my family in Italy. Who wants to jet me across the Atlantic every other weekend... any takers?

I'm also very excited because my Mom has given me my grandmothers photo albums to scan. I'm hoping to eventially be able to not only record these photographs but also my mom's stories of them.

With that being said Wisconsin is so wide-open and compressing at the same time it makes me very anxious if that even makes sense. I'm so glad to be back in the city and I've decided there are few things better than drunken bike rides at 4am with Jane and Asher.