When I was in elementary school I took art lessons. Sometimes we sketched still life scenes, and I remember having the freedom to toss a variety of pots on the wheel too. My favorite assignments, however, were the ones that required us to make something new out of things that already existed. I enjoyed the challenge of working within such obvious physical parameters. I recall being particularly proud of a sculpture made of wood and a hard boiled egg.

Today as I sat in my area muddling through interview excerpts and making charts to organize my materials, I felt a resurgence of energy that reminded me of my wood and egg days. At this point I pretty much have the components of my project, especially now that I picked up the scans. It is now time to use the women's words to add depth to the images. I want to use the quotations in a way that is fair to the families depicted and compelling to a public audience. I am enjoying putting this puzzle together.

Sarah

As I have begun to make plans to exhibit work in Boston and to move to California, it has become more real that I won’t be working at Julie’s for too much longer. This time is both exciting and sad for me.

It is exciting to begin planning how to share the portraits and narratives with the community, and I have been energized by the enthusiasm around this exhibition. It is also neat to think about how much I have grown through the fellowship experience so far. The sadness is rooted in the fact that I will miss the people, the community, and the work here. I will miss them because they are special.

I am currently pursuing a position as an upper-level math teacher in an urban school in Los Angeles. While I don’t know exactly which school I will take a job with or what the school leader will be like, I am fairly certain he or she will not follow each check-in with a hug, kiss on the cheek, and “I love you” like Sister Louise does.

While I am not quite ready to write a “good-bye” themed entry, thoughts of leaving have been on my mind as people at Julie’s have started thinking about it too. Yesterday Lauretta asked me if I would write letters and invite her to my wedding one day.

I don’t want my fellowship to end too soon because it will be hard to say good-bye and also because there is still a great deal of work to do to finish my project properly. Over the last couple weeks there have been many developments in terms of the production of my project.

First, I must tell the story of Trish and the scanning. I was planning to have my 4x5 negatives scanned using a flatbed scanner for a price of about $4 per negative. I called Alex about some technical questions regarding scanning, and he suggested that I try to have the negative scans done locally with an Imacon scanner.

I went straight to Google, and found a number that didn’t work. I then googled the street address, found a number for someone in the same building, called, and said what it was I needed done. The man referred me to Jim and gave me a cell phone number.

I left a message with Jim, and he called me back several minutes later. He said that scans would cost either $35 or $45 per negative. I was shocked but tried to mask it through a polite “Oh, no thank you.” For the next hour or so I went on emailing other leads when I got an email from Trish, the woman who lets me rent darkroom space.

She asked if I called Jim about scanning 4x5 negatives. I emailed back, confused, but staying that I did. She then emailed me saying that she was having lunch with him when I called, and she had thought it might be me. He is one or her biggest freelance clients, and she had asked him if she could scan my stuff for free on the weekend. He had agreed.

I was so touched because we don’t know one another hardly well enough for such a gesture to be expected. It wasn’t even as though I asked her. She went out of her way to see if I could benefit from a service she could provide.

In May I will be traveling to Durham to print the portraits. After the display copy, which I hope will be relatively large, is matted, I plan to have the mom’s writing on the mat board. I have been doing interviews of the moms and have also been gathering the writing they have done for The Write Stuff, the literary journal of Julie’s Members.

I have been pulling key thoughts or expressions from these sources. It has been easy to identify what I am looking for when I hear it but hard to describe how it happens or what it is that makes them stand out. I think this format makes sense because I don’t want the mom’s words to be lost in the small print of a caption. I also want there to be a oneness between the mom’s words - the reflection on her journey as a mother - and the image I made of the family.

The next stage of the project - the exhibition phase - still needs to be worked out exactly. I met with Bob and Ann on Tuesday and Sister Louise yesterday to discuss these plans, and these meetings were helpful and energizing.

Ideally, we would like to have an opening reception somewhere like City Hall. At this event we would want to first and foremost celebrate the moms. We also talked about having food, drinks, and a small speaking line-up. This would probably take place in the beginning of June, and from there we are talking about ways to make the portraits local for a week or two by dispersing the collection and hanging them in local coffee shops, banks, and libraries.

Bob will do much of the work in terms of getting in touch with people about opportunities for showing the portraits, and so for now I am just trying to finish collecting materials and maintaining other projects.

Earlier this week I was asked to help with the brochure for the Annual Fund campaign. I wrote three of the four blurbs about the families that are being highlighted. The development office was also able to use photographs I took of the families to give the brochure a personal feel. I am glad that my work is useful to the organization and also glad that I am given responsibilities such as this.

I have also been busy taking digital pictures with the Nikon D50 my brother lent me. I have been photographing events, such as Easter celebrations and yesterday’s snake show. I now take pictures of families with the digital camera when I make the black and white portraits, and some moms, many of whom I photographed earlier for the Portrait Project, have asked me to take more pictures of them now that the weather is nice outside.

The weather has shaped my experience and project more than I imagined it would. It often made portrait appointments nearly impossible for moms to keep. When I come to work, particularly of days of freezing rain, which were still going on a week ago, I sometimes find myself letting out a sigh and thinking “Ahh, the weather and a place to live.” The Weather and a Place to Live is actually a book that won a book prize at the Center for Documentary Studies when I was a student there.

I think of those words when I think about weather as a powerful force on shaping the experience of a place. However, it is funny since I don’t even own the book. It represents only a tiny sliver of my Duke experience, yet I recall it. I wonder what similar slivers of experience will run around my mind after I leave Julie’s. I have ideas, but I guess I can’t really know quite yet.

My favorite days at work are the ones that involve changes of scenery and pace. Today was that sort of day. Here is what I did.

9:00am - Debriefed with Ann about a meeting yesterday

9:30am - Began reading Seedfolks, a book the moms will be reading soon

10:15am - Photographed the moms and children as they played with snakes


11:45am - Lunch

12pm - Took pictures with Ariana, a young girl who is battling cancer and is the daughter of a Julie's alum

1:30pm - Updated media in iPhoto

2:15pm - Photographed Tristan and her twin daughters


3:00pm - Met with Sister Louise to discuss where my project is going

4:00pm - Asked Ann for chocolate like I do everyday at this time

4:15pm - Wrote this Blog entry

"Don't go trying to steal my photographer!" Annette repeated excitedly as she waved her index finger in the air.

She told Molly and me minutes earlier that the black and white contact print I gave her last week had been very popular with the other women in her shelter. They asked her if I could come back to take their pictures too. Annette recounted her response, "So I told them, 'Nuh uh. She comes for Julie's clients only. Don't go trying to steal my photographer. " I couldn't help but laugh a little.

This is not the first time women have expressed this sentiment. I think many of them see pictures and picture-taking as an incentive of the program, and it is special for me to be able to provide that service and photographs. I thought I would share this account because it was funny to me.

My first day back at Julie's last week I went to the New England Spring Flower Show with a group of Julie's moms. It was nice to get reacquainted with the moms. It was not that I had been gone for so long as much as it was that I felt out of touch with them and much of my life in Boston. It was nice to feel eased back into things in this way.

I also enjoyed the flowers more than I thought I would. I photographed a great number of them with the digital SLR my brother lent me. I was reminded of the time my family went to an aquarium in northern Italy. I was in charge of the camera for the day; we usually rotated this privilege. At the end of the day I had shot an overwhelming number of images, but only a handful of them contained the people in my family. We had a lot of pictures of fish and strange sea creatures. I was drawn to their color and their movement. Similarly, I was very engaged by the flowers as I looked at them through my camera. Upon further reflection I think that I enjoyed photographing the flowers, more than the flowers themselves.

I particularly liked the orchids. I liked that their growers had to do so much - and do it perfectly - in order for plant to reach the pinnacle of its design. All the handouts and lengthy explanations in this section of the exhibition indicated that orchids were not accidents. They were well-nurtured and also so unique from one another. I think their distinctness affected me the most of all their qualities because I have come back to this thought many times in the last several days.

I think we all want to do something uniquely well. I want my project about motherhood - as told through the strong women who come to Julie's - to be a story only I could tell. I feel that the moms want to find jobs that are perfectly suited for them, which is difficult as far as low-wage work is concerned. And I see moms wanting to use their unique talents and experiences to give back to Julie's in a way that only they can.

Today at lunch Esther asked me if I tried the dessert she made. It was obvious that she hoped I had or would soon. She told me the recipe was a traditional recipe from her home country of Nicaragua. If she had made cheese and crackers - something almost all of us here can do - I don't think she would have had the same pride about what she could offer.

Sometimes people are teachers, but nature always is.

Andreina

Darla, Alumni Mom

Kim

Lana

I went to Lana's house in Lynn, Massachusetts, on Monday. It was the first shoot I went on alone, and I was happy to have successfully navigated my way. The only issue was that the apartment building and street were not labeled, but the clerk at a local drycleaner sorted that confusion out for me.

When I arrived the apartment smelled delicious, like chocolate. Lana had baked brownies. She was excited to offer me one, and her eagerness led me to assume she'd made them for my visit. When I later told Ann about the brownies, her eyes swelled up because she was so touched.

Lana had moved into her apartment from Old Colony in Southie in the beginning of January. She got the affirmative phone call about the apartment lead while we were at the inauguration of Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts. It was special to see the space that I had heard her proudly talk about.

Lana's partner Jose, who works as a cashier at Dunkin Donuts, was very involved in my visit. He socialized with Lana and I and helped me bring my equipment back to the car. He asked me about Duke, and told me that he knew things about the basketball team because he had seen the NCAA tournament before. I thought it was sweet of him to make conversation with me. Ann was also touched by Jose's reference to Duke as she said it really represented him reaching out.

Up until that point, I had only photographed one other man in the process of making these family portraits. (And the first is no longer involved in the lives of the mother and child, so I plan to re-take that portrait next week.) Each of the photographs I have posted here and hope to use in my final work has a unique quality that makes it special to me. In the image of Lana, Jose, and Jayden I am drawn to the way Jayden is gently touching his father's face.

Idy

Laura

Melissa

I have been home for two weeks even though Julie's February vacation is only a week long. The people who oversee my work at Julie's were supportive of me taking the additional time to be home with my mom who has advanced cancer. My mom was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma the summer before I began my fellowship in Boston. At that time I was unsure if I should stay home and postpone the fellowship, but my parents were adamant that I proceed. From the beginning - though I may not have been overt about it - I have been unable to completely separate the experience of being the daughter of my mother and the experience of my mother's illness from the work I have chosen to pursue at Julie's.

When I came to Julie's I was very in tune with the theme of motherhood because of the time I spent caring for, learning from, and growing with my own mother over the summer. I was sensitive to the ways many of the moms at Julie's had turned from themselves to make things better for their children. I was repeatedly touched by the way the staff at Julie's and the moms themselves elevated the mother-child relationship as the most precious bond.

While I brought a sensitivity to Julie's, I also brought what I do at Julies - which is making photographs - home. Much of the time photographers - particularly documentary photographers and journalists - look for an "in", some sort of contact that allows and exclusive, intimate access. Sometimes, however, there are rich stories of transformation so very close to us that it is hard to see them...or perhaps, find the courage to see them.

Over the last two weeks I have become more open and willing to photograph my mom as a way to record her experience with cancer. I often tell moms at Julie's that I am interested in taking their photographs and recording their stories because I am convinced they have valuable, powerful stories to share with people outside their circumstances. And I believe my mom does too.

If I had to give a title to the short photo essay below, I would call it "Alopecia: A window into Loss." Alopecia is the medical term for hair loss, which is often a side effect of chemotherapy. I think that for my mom, and many other cancer patients, the loss of hair speaks to a larger sense of loss - loss of life as it used to be. Or loss of life as it used to look.

In the middle of last week, Mom and I made the trip to the salon at the cancer center to get her head shaved. My sister gave my mom a short hair cut a couple weeks ago, but the hair was continuing to fall out everywhere. It was messy, but more than that I imagine it was traumatic for my mom to hold handfuls of hair in her hands.

Yesterday some of my mom's friends and I threw her a surprise "Hat and Scarf Party." We invited close friends to gather at our house in support of mom. Everyone brought hats and scarves for her, and many women wore hats and scarves themselves. Our neighbor, Julie, asked me very seriously if she should shave her head for the occasion. As we sat in a circle different women spoke of how my mom encourages them. She says she feels deeply saddened that all she can do is receive at this point in her life. Maybe she can't give her friends' kids rides to school dances or bake them muffins, but she gives them inspiration, which is a great deal harder to come by.