Fragile and Fleeting
My studio was flooded out in the huge rain storm we had in Toronto two weeks ago. It was heartbreaking to say the least. Last night I began going through the several boxes of papers that were soaked in the flood. Much of it is correspondence from the past 30 years that I’ve been saving. I’ve hardly made any headway – its a slow delicate process trying to save hand written letters still in their envelopes.
In there, were letters from five different people who are no longer alive. Reading little snatches of these, it was like nothing had changed. One moment we’re alive and well, the next we’re not. This is so profoundly difficult to comprehend. We relate to our friends and family on a constant basis and there is an assumption that tomorrow when we want to do it again, they will still be there. And yet, we are not that permanent.
When I received those letters, I never considered at this time, this would be all I’d have left, to indicate there had once been an intelligent loving person in my world.
While I don’t specifically photograph people in my work, I am attempting to capture the result of their actions – the dynamic of their passage – within the context of a city. Aside from letters and photographs, there is precious little remaining from our passage, giving any indication of who we once were.