The Other Stories

This series concerns itself with the interrogation of intergenerational violence and whether healing is truly possible using the archives of two families for which these issues are particularly pronounced.

The Other Stories Statement

The stories in this series pick up with two men —

my paternal great-grandfather and my maternal grandfather.

Of course, the stories neither began nor ended with them exclusively.

The stories they would have you remember are about legacy. Their stories were about publishing poetry in 1950s San Francisco, documenting labor rights movements, being a celebrated school superintendent, and fighting the good wars. Their sons and daughters, although particularly their sons, might have you solely remember these stories, too.

But, then there are The Other Stories:

• about a grandfather molesting his granddaughter,

• about a wife complicit in her husband’s fondness for young girls,

• about a husband lighting his wife’s hair on fire,

• about a son left in the car while his parents drink at the bar,

• about a ninety year old man attempting to choke his adult daughter.

These are the stories no one wants to remember about the cycles of physical violence, substance abuse and mental health disorders passed down from one generation to the next like a virus.

This series concerns itself with the interrogation of intergenerational violence and whether healing is truly possible using the archives of two families for which these issues are particularly pronounced. Prints are pulled directly from the archives or reproduced from negatives using a variety of processes and then worked by hand using collage, pencil, acrylic, sandpaper, and other manual interventions.

The work presupposes that all families contain some form of this unanswerable riddle — whether you know it or not, whether you are willing to look or not.

This story is about sunlight being the best disinfectant.