Natural Histories
This is the story of a year between two friends.
Our paths crossed repeatedly over the years as creative women living in a small community, but it wasn’t until both of our mothers developed dementia that our friendship grew deeply. We had reached adulthood with all the external markers of success, and yet under the weight of caregiving we felt our foundation crumbling. It would seem the death of a parent who no longer remembers us would bring relief, and to some extent this was true. But the grief cracked us open and forced us to come to terms with suffering wrought by complicated relationships with our mothers. With no way to numb feelings of resentment and anger, we found solace in our shared experiences. We kept meeting for coffee and conversation, listening with fierce compassion.
This project was born from our friendship: Donna a photographer, Susan a poet. We set out to create a collection of photographs and poems exploring this season of our lives. Our intention was to make work that would be self-reflective and deeply immersed in personal memory (and the loss of memory). The work was collaborative as we exchanged hundreds of messages over the course of a year. The photographs and poems informed and influenced each other, building a narrative for the work. Together we posed and explored questions of history, nature, family, loss, aging, and the body. We grew to see our mothers as more than wounds to heal and came to embrace our generational strengths.
Over time, our poems and pictures become a collection—a body of work that marked our progression through life, a study of our own natural histories.
Our work culminated in the design and publication of a limited edition book, Natural Histories. These are the fifty-two photographs of the project, the pairs to poems written by my forever friend, Susan Carter Morgan.
