i love you bertha

distressed large format negatives

giving this camera back will just be the saddest

butterfly wing dust

My dreams are noisy: nightmares of storms of butterflies. Their jewel wings are sharp against my skin, and eventually dissolve so that only their skeletal form is left. I try to hold them, but they disintegrate into butterfly dust. It's a weird push and pull of trying to preserve something that hurts me. 

My work helps me understand the eeriness I feel about these creatures. I capture the "bones" of butterfly wings, illuminating their form by projecting light through them to create a photogram, an x-ray of sorts. By such reductions, I take away the sentimental implication of a butterfly; strip away its vibrant surface to reveal its other side. 

When I'm finished recording their skeletons I put the wings through my sewing machine, harnessing them to fabric or paper. Just as in my dream, more butterfly dust than butterfly wing is left over when

I'm finished. My fingers sparkle with it, and I am delighted by its beauty, but unnerved by the fact that I'm covered in substance that once made up a living thing.