The Love Story investigates how my own’s parents divorce affected my life. I started by looking through bins of photos at my moms, then my grandmother’s house, then my dad’s house. All 3 homes within a 5 minute drive to the next. After collecting my archive of photographs that allude to my life with Dad and Mom, Dad and Amy, Mom and Bill, Mom and Todd, Dad and Shun Li ... my parents were questioning my actions as why I want to dig into the past, more importantly, their relationships. I feel as if though the people they have chosen to call their spouse have impacted my life in way’s that other people in this world don’t get the privilege to appreciate. Between all of the good, the bad and the endless car rides from one parents to another… love was never lost. After photo editing my archive of photos I started to make my own pages of paper from plants, newspaper, old photos and notes from my parents. I used a mold and deckel to press my pages and let them dry over night. I re-printed some photos and used some of the original prints my mother gave me. All artifacts and photos used in this project have been scanned and archived on my hard drive. The hardest thing in this project for me was having to sit down and let my mind remind me of the things I have forgotten. Sitting in a quiet, dark room, closing your eyelids and letting your mind take you back to the mind of a child again is comforting. It’s missed. It seems so long ago. Green and purple ketchup. The taste of mulch. Grass stains. Hugs. It’s hard to recollect everything, to remember every detail. I think the mind sometimes forgets things that might be okay to forget. Following up with this project I plan on creating another book of pages I made containing current portraits of each of my past and present parents with statements from each about their experience with divorce.
