There are three facets to how and why this piece came to be. First is my grandmother, Alice Argy. Alice had not been honored in my work as had my other grandmother who I was deeply connected to. Alice made it quite clear that this upset her in a way I might notice. I had placed a portrait of her on her wedding day against my bookshelf. In front of this unframed photo was a tiny candle placed on a dish. As I walked into the living room and my sister who I was living with at the time came through the front door, the photo bent forward and began to hit the flame. The timing afforded for the burn to hit the space of her heart and gut before I caught it burning all together. I took the image to my studio along with a magazine from the 1950’s with a child in her communion outfit looking like a child bride on the cover, a tiny gold leafed diptych of two popes my mom carried in her purse. I began a collage on top of three plinths found on the street. I cut a hole through the center of the boxes and had baroque music playing as if in a coffin.

Following the commissioned group show in Oakland, I drove the pieces up to Mendocino and placed her on top of a wood pyre.

This ceremony was a letting go of my practice as a photographer who made self-portraits as my ancestors. I was letting go of the needed perfection and one dimensionality of photography as a medium.

I was honoring and releasing my grandmother’s Soul.