By And By

By and By is a series of photographs by Chloe Jones made in and around her family home in the Arkansas Ozarks.

Introduction

By and By is a fantasy where memories of my family and home intertwine with their present-day counterparts. This project utilizes original photographs, text, and lyrics from The Carter Family's "Can the Circle Be Unbroken." I explore themes of familial roles, identity, myth, and the tangled relationship between memory and present. I examine these concepts through images of family rituals, settings, and intimate domestic scenes. While deeply personal, I hope to explore the shape of the American family and probe how memory and time intersect to shape our understanding of ourselves and our families.

Background

The year I was born, my family purchased an old animal barn in the Arkansas Ozark Mountains, which eventually became a multigenerational home. Because of this history, we call it "The Barn." Over several years, my maternal grandfather, whom I refer to as Poppa, and his brothers renovated the Barn. They constructed the facade and roof out of simple aluminum siding, poured concrete floors, built a fireplace from stones found on the property, and refurbished the loft with salvaged wood. Poppa photographed the transformation of the house, and the images remain in a velvet-lined album by his bed, like a diary. As a child, this album tied me to the lineage of this place and its people. I look for the light and intimacy depicted in that album in many images within By and By. 

The version of home and family I've carried with me since I left has only ever existed as a place in my mind—a fantasy, a half-remembered dream, a feeling, or a state of being. Now, I aim to give it physical form. Although I anchor these photographs in reality, I hope to create a fictional space where memory and present coexist, unbound by the constraints of time or place. Curator Peter Galassi describes this balance within the family image genre as " between the implied sincerity of documentary…and unapologetic fictions…there is a twilight zone where the unexploded bomb of psychological narrative incessantly ticks.”

By and By is a vessel that circulates forever, carrying my memories, joys, fears, animals, family, and the house where I continually hide, discover, and understand more about myself with each visit.

Contents

The contents of By and By, are a balance of photographs of homes, portraits, and animals.

Home and the surrounding landscape offer a setting for the story I create. Representations of construction represent building family, identity, and fantasy. Homes shape families, and families shape homes. People come and go, yet we never entirely leave, as our presence lingers in the objects and memories within the house.

Portraits

In the house, I am all of the women who came before me. Their presence intertwines with mine, manifesting in how my hair frizzes and in the persistent sense of duty I try to detach from but carry with me. This project is only possible because of the generations of women who had children in their late teens and early twenties, creating a lineage with roughly 20-year intervals. My great-grandmother, Poppa's mother, passed away only five years ago, allowing me the experience of growing up alongside five generations of family. This is both a great privilege and a source of anxiety.

At 31, I navigate my family in the amorphous space between child and adult, exercising the freedom required to come and go and create these images. When my mother remarried several years ago, I gained twin stepsisters, Willow and Hannah, who are 20 years younger than me. They appear in my work as surrogates for myself and to represent the path my life could have taken if I had children at the age women did in generations before me. Without motherhood, I feel visible and invisible in my family structure— I wonder where I belong.

With my camera, I hold up a mirror to the women in my family, seeking answers. Photographing my family is, in part, an effort to construct a role for myself. I aim to represent the distortion of familial roles and identity in my photographs through the depiction of family members photographed both together and as individuals. I look for smeared, in-between, floating images, as represented in pictures of family and animals that are not quite grounded.

Animals

In By and By, animals are a fundamental part of our family identity and fantasy. Because the structure of the house was originally a barn for animals, Poppa (and wild animals) constantly reminds us that "They(the animals) were here first." Paws are imprinted on the concrete floors and on the dirty skylight windows.  We believe that the women in our family are reincarnated as red birds, which is reflected in a plethora of home decor. Growing up, my family said I was always "more squirrel than girl." They still refer to me as "squirrel."

Fantasy

In By and By, I use the fantastic to delve into the complexity of family, memory, and identity.  Ambiguity and fluidity in my photographs aim to create a space where the viewer must navigate their own uncertainty, oscillating between seeing the images as real or imagined. It is essential to the work that my images maintain a foothold in the real. They depict my actual family members and contain the real fear, joy, loss, and memories that are held in my home. Even if the viewer is unable to detect or articulate the exact truths underpinning my work, it is my hope that they can feel the kernels of honesty. Fantasy allows viewers to engage with deeper emotional truths and connections that would be unavailable through realism alone. 

By and By 

The title 'By and By’ primarily references the phrase in the song “Can the Circle Be Unbroken.” by The Carter Family. My Poppa was the lead singer of a southern gospel band, The Calvary Echoes, and I often traveled with them to local churches for performances. Growing up, I sang this song with Poppa, and we still sing it together. It’s a song meant to be sung collectively, without a clear beginning or end—you can pick it up in the middle and keep going. In church, we sang the hymn version, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” both in celebration and at funerals. The song conveys messages of loss, hope, and the desire for reunion.

The circle in the song symbolizes a family broken by the death of the mother, with the singers asking God to repair the family. The verses sung by soloists, express despair, while the chorus, sung by the whole group, expresses hope.

The phrase ‘by and by’ in gospel music should be credited first to Charles Albert Tindley in 1905. Then, in 1907, Ada Habershon created a version that chastises the congregation, urging singers to remember to remember their Christian faith in the face of loss.

In 1935, A.P. Carter revised the hymn. Although the refrain remained similar, he significantly changed the melody and lyrics. The Carters focused the song on the personal loss of a mother within a single family. They altered the melody to create a continuous, energetic feeling between verses by jumping a beat on phrases ‘by and by’ and ‘in the sky.’  The Carters understood the power of personal narrative, recognizing that individual stories provide a lens through which people can make sense of confusing or challenging times. I have created a new rendition of By and By through photography. While it is personal to me, I don’t believe that this story is unique. Storytelling's power and privilege lie in its ability to bridge connections and foster shared understanding with others.