For most people the warnings of mortality often stir up family issues both philosophical and practical. The philosophical usually deals with family dynamics, how one has lived their life, successes, failures and regrets. Practical issues are almost always money, possessions and real estate. In my family, these two categories are often the same, or at least interrelated. Death as a subject of conversation is not controversial to my parents. The controversy is hidden in that they will have to part with their possessions. Parting with their material possessions has layers or conflict for them. Closest to the surface is “this is my stuff not yours”, beneath that layer reveals, to what degree their three kids developed as hoarders, or how much of them will we keep after they are gone. The third layer is complicated, more public; the idea of an estate auction would roll my mother in her grave, but would excite my father to no end. He loves a good auction. To him it’s an unfolding drama, riddled with sadness, excitement, and a chance to display one’s aesthetic choices.

My family has always expressed themselves with the objects in their environment. Both of my parents went to art school; my father become a designer and my mother created several handmade toy companies. They are vicious collectors, not entirely in a modern consumerist manner, though they can excel in that realm as well, but more like the way a fisherman or surfer might protect a beach or fishing grounds. They have collected some odd and some typical antiques. They range from match strikers, to tin toys, to rolls of felt. Objects are held on to like a Maine Yankee parks their derelict cars in the side yard, deserted, but still needed. Nothing is ever sold, but everything has value. These objects have played an important roll in my life, by shaping my sense of humor, aesthetic, and my interest in history. To date, I have a small suite of images that have held my curiosity for the last few years. I have made them on holiday visits. I have never needed to own all of these objects, I have discovered photographing them has created a new kind of ownership, most importantly one subverting nostalgia. Personally the work functions as a memorial, but I believe the images can be accessible to a larger audience. Publicly the pictures function in the realm of beauty, mystery, and an innate sense of suspended animation. There is nothing I enjoy more that selling one of these prints, it immortalizes my parent’s influence in a very complex way.