96 Joralemon

96 Joralemon Street – A Photo Memoir

10x10 Printed book

My mother lived in my childhood home / her adult home in Brooklyn Heights for more than 40 years. She and my father bought it in 1961, and she continued to live there after their separation and divorce, after us children moved out, and after she got remarried. We all assumed she would end her life there, carried out in the proverbial pine box. But in 2002 she was diagnosed with an unclear degenerative neurological disorder. The illness was ruthless, her decline was rapid, and everyone’s plans had to change. In 2007 she was too sick to stay, and we moved her out. My brother and I packed up 45 years of our family’s life.

I was raised in that house, walked from there to school every day from K-12th grade, lollygagged there in the summer, stole my parent’s alcohol there, lived there for five years as an adult, got married there, stayed there whenever I was in New York City. That’s where I learned from my artist parents how to express and create, how to be much of who I became. That was home, with a capitol H.

When we started to pack up, I started to photograph. I didn’t have a project in mind, but knew I wanted more than just memory. I needed details; cracks, windows, hallways, and rooms. I photographed the move out process in 2007, again in 2008 before we rented the house, and in 2011 before we sold (my mother died in 2009).

In 2016 while taking a photo book class, I started a project using the images I had shot, and began to piece my ideas together. Until then I knew I wanted to make a book, but that was my only clear thought. Here are 20 pages of 100 page book, a culmination of my empty house photos, family photos, ephemera that my mother had saved, and my writing. It is a eulogy to a part of me that I could hardly bear to let go off, a recognition of family and home, a celebration of where I am from, a memoir. It is also a natural progression of my photography and art, as I am the archivist in the family. It is a way for me to thank my parents for everything they have given me, and hopefully a way for me to let go, and complete my childhood.